Forever
by notenoughpotter
Summary: Damon and Elena have forever, but does that come at a cost Damon's not willing to pay?
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: First up, let's chat about this particular story. It's my version of where I perceive canon events heading….and that's not always a pretty place. Y'all are going to have to trust me a little more than I typically ask you to because this isn't anyone's version of a typical DE story.

That being said, it is a DE story. At least it is in a way. Can't say more than that – because…spoilers.

I'm not sure how long this will be or exactly how many posts per week I'll manage. I'm kind of at a tough place in my professional writing right now, and it affects my flow. Writing fanfic tends to get me out of a rut, so y'all are lucky (I think).

Warnings: Mature

Alcohol use, Stefan, Caroline, mild adult content, violence, more than my typical amount of angst

* * *

The fluorescent lights overhead were dimmed from their almost-blinding daytime intensity to the middle-of-the-night quasi-darkness Damon had come to expect over the past few years. Somehow, time seemed almost inconsequential when waiting for news in a hospital hallway. Maybe that's why clocks were so few and far between, hidden in nooks and crannies the staff knew to check but no one else would notice. Most of the time, visitors didn't seem to want the reminder that precious seconds were slipping away. All too often it seemed those seconds were the very ones that separated a family from wholeness to being forever apart.

One second meant the difference from Elena, Jeremy and Jenna being a family to Elena and Jeremy being alone once again.

One second separated Caroline from her mother.

One second made the difference between the life Elena deserved and the life she had now.

Ten years ago…maybe even five….Damon never dreamed he would have measured his existence in seconds. Seconds didn't matter when he was cursed with forever.

Forever.

The idea of having forever wasn't a curse now. And it hadn't been since the night in the rain with Elena. The night she made him promise her forever.

Even if Elena no longer remembered that night, he did. He could feel the wetness soaking through his shirt. He remembered the way her eyes sparkled brighter than the shooting stars they weren't able to see. Most of all, he remembered the way her breathing sped and her lips tasted against his.

They had forever.

For a vampire, forever was an eternity…and it was as fleeting as a second.

Tonight, he was back here counting seconds again, watching each tick by with an anticipation he never could have dreamed he'd possess. Each one weighed at him. Each one brought him closer to a future he never could have predicted.

The night was filled with the not-quite-hushed enough sounds of a hospital.

Monitors beeped.

Wheelchairs squeaked down hallways.

One family member whispered to another.

Somewhere, someone moaned while asleep.

None of the sounds were the single one Damon was waiting for. And he was waiting. That's why he'd spent the last hours sitting in the not-remotely-comfortable plastic chair, resting his head against the wall and pretending to sleep under the watchful eye of the waiting room monitor. Damon took his best friend duties seriously. Tonight they included staying awake while Ric held an icepack to the back of his head.

Ric tried to stand for possibly the 100th time.

"Don't do it." Damon felt like he should have his phone just utter the words as an every-ten-minute alarm by now.

Ric wobbled on his feet, reaching for the arm of the chair just behind him as he lowered himself back onto the pea green seat.

"You pass out at the sight of blood." Damon sniggered with a shake of his head in disdain. "Seriously?"

"It wasn't the blood." Alaric dropped the lukewarm ice pack onto the ground next to his feet. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and placing his forehead in his open palms.

"Care to enlighten me?"

Ric cracked one eye open in skepticism. He seemed to be measuring whether or not to trust his best friend with the explanation. "It was shock."

"Shock?"

"As in….this is really happening." Ric hissed through his teeth and straightened in his seat, his eyes looking down the hallway he'd recently been banned from. "God, I should be in there."

"I wouldn't mess with her."

"I'm not afraid of my wife."

Damon raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't talking about Jo." He rocked forward in his chair, almost subconsciously mirroring his friend's posture. "I'm talking about your step-daughter."

"Technically, Elena's not related to me."

Damon shrugged. "Close enough."

As if she knew she'd been the subject of a short discussion, Elena appeared in the hallway, rounding the corner to step into the waiting room. She tugged her hair out from beneath the collar of a pair of navy blue scrubs she hadn't been wearing at her birthday party earlier in the evening. She flashed a quick grin at Damon before turning a questioning gaze on Ric. Raising one eyebrown in a spot-on impression of Damon, she cocked her head to the side. "How are you doing?"

"I should be in there." Ric tried to get to his feet, but one look from Elena stopped him halfway.

She turned to face Damon. "How is he?"

"He's a jerk who drinks too much who got your supervisor pregnant."

"Other than that." Elena fought back a grin at Ric's expense.

"He's definitely less green than he was when that orderly delivered him to me. And he's desperate to get back to Jo's room."

Elena nodded, breaking into a full smile. "And it's probably time. Because someone's ready to meet you."

"Really?" Ric shot to his feet, suddenly not the slightest bit unsteady.

"Come on, Dad." Elena hooked her arm through Ric's elbow, escorting him down the hallway, leaving Damon alone…again.

That lasted for about five seconds.

Ric paused, turning back to the waiting room. "What are you waiting on?"

"I thought…" Damon stopped, unsure of exactly why he was lingering behind.

"You thought." Ric rolled his eyes. "Come on."

"Besides, you can help me catch him if he passes out again." Elena laughed while Ric punched her on the shoulder.

And so the three made their way down the hallway to the room next to the fire exit. It seemed larger than most, and right now that was good. With a few fellow doctors and nurses oohing and aahing over Jo, once the three others walked in, it was almost shoulder to shoulder at the bedside.

Jo looked tired, but she managed a good natured laugh when she caught sight of her husband. Without addressing him, she spoke to Elena. "Think it's safe for him now?"

"I brought reinforcements." She inclined her head in Damon's direction.

Jo shook her head, turning to Damon. "He's your responsibility. If he starts to go down…"

"I'll catch him before he hits the ground."

"I'm more worried about who he might be holding." Jo scanned the room, the expression on her face said it all. It was time for all the extra friends to leave. This was a private time.

A time for family.

And somehow Damon was a part of that family.

Elena made sense. Ever since they'd learned that Ric's first wife was Elena's mother, Ric had taken on an almost-father role, or at least much older brother one. While it would be easy to say that Damon was just a part of the package deal – he came with Elena, it wasn't that simple.

"Careful." Elena passed a small bundle from Jo's arms into Ric's. "Watch her head."

"I took classes in this."

"But this isn't one of the dolls." Elena shook her head as she ran a finger down the infant's pink cheek. "She'll break if you drop her."

"Drop a doll once and suddenly I'm banned from holding my own daughter?" Ric sounded as if he were teasing, but his voice had an unfamiliar edge. He stared down at the blanket-wrapped form with wide-eyed amazement. Dark brown lashes curled against cheeks as pink as the hat on her head.

"Just…be careful." Jo cautioned from the bed. Her eyelids drooped with the weight of the pain killers that were currently dripping through her IV. "How about you?"

Damon looked at Elena, not wanting to miss this chance to watch her with her new almost-step-sister.

Jo shook her head and laughed. "Elena's already held them both. How about you, Damon?" She looked down at the little one wrapped in blue nestled on the pillow between her knees. "How about you, Damon?"

Elena assisted in the transfer, and before Damon fully realized what was going on, he was holding the tiniest baby he'd ever seen in his arms. "He's really small."

"That kind of happens with twins, especially when they're a month early." Elena answered with medical-student-assuredness.

"But, they're both okay?"

"They're perfect." Elena reached over and traced the tips of the little boy's fingers.

"Um, Elena?" Ric was blinking a little too fast, but Elena was faster. She crossed the room in a blur, taking the girl from his arms, instantly beginning a half-rock-half dance that Damon had seen countless mothers do throughout his years of existence. "I think I need to sit down."

"Are we sure he doesn't have a concussion?" Jo shook her head, glaring at her husband. "Maybe he needs to borrow my bed."

"I'll be fine. This is just a lot to take in." Ric squinted his eyes at the two vampires holding his children. "How did they miss the fact we were having twins?"

"No idea." Jo thudded her head against the pillow, closing her eyes.

"Did you two ever decide on names?"

"Not exactly." Ric shook his head. "Maybe by tomorrow."

"But we did make one decision." Jo prompted, her words becoming ever so slightly slurred. "You want to do the honors?"

Elena looked at Damon and they both stared between Ric and Jo.

Ric sat back in the recliner, a knowing grin on his face. "_Little Guys Who We Will Try to Name_ pretty soon, meet your godparents."


	2. Chapter 2

Warnings: Mature – adult content, adult situations, domestic violence, alcohol use, drug use

* * *

"Godfather." Stefan rested his elbows on the center island in the kitchen. "I figured Ric and Jo would have been smarter than that."

"Don't ask me." Damon shrugged his shoulders. He'd have figured his main role in Ric's child's life would be the drunk uncle that corrupted the kid – not something like godfather. "Elena made sense, but no idea why he picked me."

"You two are kind of a package deal, aren't you?" Stefan raised an eyebrow. "Have you picked out a ring yet?"

No. They were not going there.

Immortal or not – Elena wasn't even nineteen yet. She was too young to think about forever, even if Damon was who she'd be spending forever with. He changed the subject. "How'd you hear about the godparents stuff anyway?"

"Elena called Caroline." Stefan answered the question like it should have been self-explanatory.

Of course Elena called Caroline. Ever since they got Caroline's emotion-switch back in the _on _position, the two had quickly resumed their best-friend status. The two women treated the boardinghouse kitchen like their own private beauty-parlor – exchanging gossip about people he could care less about. But the gossip was better than when Caroline started chatting about her sex life with Stefan. There were some things he just didn't want to know.

So why was he surprised to hear she'd called Caroline? Elena was thrilled. She wanted to share the news.

God, it seemed like forever since he'd seen Elena as happy as she'd been while holding one of the babies in her arms. She looked… He paused, not liking where his thoughts were headed, but he had to admit it anyway. Eyes alight. Smile on her face.

She looked like she did when she was human.

Stefan cleared his throat. Damn, for a minute he'd forgotten Stefan was still in the room. And now his brother had his patented expression of concern plastered across his face.

"What?" Damon snapped in reply to Stefan's unvoiced question.

"I didn't say a word."

And he was right. Stefan hadn't spoken. He didn't even ask a question. He didn't need to. The look in his eyes said it all. Stefan had been his brother for too long. He knew exactly what was running through Damon's mind.

"So she was happy to be a godmother?" Even the most innocent question felt weighted.

"Yes."

"Did they ask you two first?"

"No. We didn't know until we were each holding one."

A cynical glint played at the corners of Stefan's eyes. "Did they name them yet?"

"Not that I know of. Pretty sure Jo revoked his naming rights after he suggested Bruce Wayne."

"Probably for the best," Stefan answered, masking a smile.

Damon nodded and moved toward the liquor cabinet. A day and a night and another day in the labor and delivery ward and recovery area required alcohol. Adding his conversation with Stefan into the mix, he might be tempted to finish the whole bottle. For now, Damon was pleased that Stefan seemed to have dropped the line of conversation he'd been precariously close to starting.

Damon selected one of his best bottles of whiskey. Finding out he was a godfather deserved a toast, didn't it? He unscrewed the lid and watched as the amber liquid trickled into his glass.

"She always wanted kids you know."

Damon's hand shook in reply. He placed the bottle on the tabletop before he accidentally dropped it. Then he shot his brother a death-glare.

Stefan didn't take the hint. "Yeah. She told me once. Back on that day you fed her your blood, and Klaus was about to kill her. You remember, right? That night when Jon died to keep her human since he knew she wanted a human life too. She wanted it all. White picket fence. Two kids in the yard."

"I remember."

"Caroline said Elena used to talk about having a big family. Three or four kids. Maybe five. She was all about the big family."

It took every ounce of strength Damon had to not heave the bottle in his brother's direction. If Stefan hadn't seen him staring at the box Bonnie had given him that morning, they wouldn't be having this conversation now.

Why did Stefan have to know about the cure?

"What do you want me to say?"

"I think you already know. But I'm not the one you need to be talking to right now."

* * *

Elena came home far closer to twelve than eleven. Her shift at the hospital ended at nine, but she said she'd wanted to check in on Jo before she left. With a third of the hospital's staff out with the flu, even the maternity ward was understaffed.

He had to give her credit. She tried to come in without waking him. As if she could sneak up on a vampire…especially one so much older than she was. She was good, but not that good.

It wouldn't have mattered anyway. Damon hadn't been asleep. For the past hours, he'd been lying on his back, his mind far too busy.

"You can turn on the light."

Elena cursed under her breath. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay. You didn't. I just went to bed." Technically, two hours ago…but she didn't need to know that. The light on the nightstand flicked on, and he got a good look at her. Saying she was a mess was being kind.

Her hair looked like rats used it to build a nest. Her clothes had mysterious spots that he couldn't identify. And what little makeup she wore to work was gone. She was a vampire, and she seemed exhausted.

That was before he studied her eyes.

They were almost brighter than he'd ever seen them.

"You see the twins?"

"I did." Her eyes shone even brighter. "Jo was thrilled I came by. She hadn't gotten a chance to take a shower."

"Where was Ric?"

"Asleep on the couch." She perched on the side of the bed next to him. "I didn't have the heart to wake him. He looked tired while he was still asleep."

"How are you?" He reached out to stroke her hair.

"Nope." She popped to her feet. "Not the best idea right now." She ran a hand over her hair, wincing. "I'm fine. Really. Better than fine. But I need a shower." She gazed down at her scrubs. "I'm not exactly sure what body fluids I'm currently wearing."

She waited for something. Maybe a reply? Possibly a joke about adding a few extra fluids. But he couldn't. Not after his conversation with his brother and what he'd witnessed tonight.

A minx-ish expression filled her eyes. She raised one eyebrow, nodding toward the bathroom. "If you're not tired, do you want to help me in the shower? I might need a little help."

"Well, when you put it like that, how can I resist?"

* * *

Author's note: Sorry this one is short. I'll admit, it's been beyond difficult to even get this chapter to happen with the events of this week. However, I definitely don't want to leave everyone hanging. This will be a shorter story than originally planned. That's not bad news, though. I have an announcement to make that I hope all of y'all will be happy about. I've partnered with LastDayOfMagic (also an author on this site) to do our own take on seasons 3 through the end of the TVD series. We're hoping to give the lead character the attention she deserves. While I can't give a link here, you can find it by searching for the story "Half-Life" by LastDayofTVD.

Also, I've had a few readers mention if I could give a few hints about my alter-ego's writing. If you're interested in finding an author whose style is remarkably similar to mine, look for the book "Playing by the Rules" by an author named Burrow on your favorite e-retailer.

Thanks for sticking with me during these interesting days in the fandom.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's note: Angst level set to high.

Mature – Stefan, Caroline, alcohol use, adult content, sensitive situations, nod to Nina

* * *

Jo pushed the door to the laundry room shut with her heel, balancing a basket overflowing with sheets, towels, and other assorted items that came along with having one-month-old twins. Elena looked up from where she balanced Noah on her knees. They'd been debating whether his curled lips were a smile directed at his godmother or gas before they'd been interrupted by the buzz from the dryer. Jo rolled her eyes. "He hates it when I bounce him like that."

Elena leaned down, fake-whispering in the infant's ear. "Your momma just doesn't know how to bounce right, does she?" He was definitely the harder of the pair of twins to placate. It had only taken five minutes with rocking Nina earlier in the evening before she had dropped off to sleep. Now the nursery was filled with the sound of soft breathing which explained why Elena sat in the middle of the living room floor with Noah. The little guy was a little too good at waking his sister up. He wrapped his hands around her index fingers and gave what sounded really close to a giggle. Elena winced, tilting her head up to look at Jo. "He's just not tired. How long did he nap?"

"Not nearly long enough." Jo sighed, settling on the floor. "Even Dr. Wilson said he'd never seen a baby as awake as he is." She shook her head. "Shouldn't he sleep more than six hours at night? He barely even naps."

"I guess he's just energetic." Elena shifted, moving to put him in his bouncy seat. "Let me fold the laundry for you. I'm faster."

"No." Jo shook her head. "You've already done the wash. And the dishes. And gave both the babies their baths." She studied Elena with a hint of concern in her eyes. "You've even slept here half the nights since they came home. It's time for me to figure out how to do this on my own."

"You shouldn't be alone, at least not when it's two against one. Where's Ric?"

"He had a conference at school. And then I think he was meeting Damon for drinks."

Elena raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't he be here?"

"I think he needed a night off."

"All the more reason for me to stay."

"Elena, I'm fine. If Ric's shirts are wrinkled, it'll just teach him a lesson for not doing the laundry last night like he said he was going to. But now you should go. When was the last time you ate dinner with Damon?"

"That's kind of hard if he's hanging out at the bar with Ric. It looks weird for me to be drinking with one of my professors."

"Does it look any weirder than being his babies' godmother?"

Elena screwed up her lips, her eyes rolling toward the ceiling. "Not sure if that's exactly common knowledge."

"That's probably for the best." Jo had an expression on her face that hinted that she wasn't going to be easily dissuaded from her earlier topic of conversation. "If you don't want go meet Damon, why don't you see if Caroline is doing anything tonight. You're young. Carefree. Go do young, carefree things while you still can."

Silence almost overwhelmed the room.

"I'll always be young, Jo. I literally have all the time in the world to go hang out. But I won't always have…" Elena's voice trailed off on a somber note. Whether from lack of sleep or the amount of time she'd been spending with Elena or the fact that she was married to a vampire who was now human, it wasn't the first time in recent days that Elena's vampire-status seemed to have slipped Jo's mind.

Jo flinched at the reminder, she seemed to be searching for some type of comment to cover her mistake, but it was too late. The light mood was broken. Noah fidgeted and started gnawing at his fist.

"I can't help you there, buddy." Elena stroked her thumb over his fist. "I can do a lot of things, but…not that one. Never that one." She wasn't the only one who noticed that Noah took his every-three-hour feeding schedule seriously. Jo was already on her feet, moving toward the glider while reaching for the top button of her blouse. "Here you go." She handed Noah to his mother. "Maybe you're right. I probably should leave."

"No. Really." Jo paused. "I said the wrong thing. Sometimes it's hard to remember…what you are. I'm sorry. You can stay."

"I'll see you tomorrow." Elena had already knelt down to pick up her bag off the floor. "If you need any help before Ric gets home, just text me."

"Elena..." Jo fought for the words for an apology, but she didn't know what to say. She simply watched as Elena closed the door behind her.

* * *

Ric walked into the Skull Bar and had no trouble finding Damon. His friend had a perimeter of three empty seats all the way around him. That wasn't exactly a promising sign. For a minute, he questioned whether or not drinking with someone with his mood set to _terrible_ was the way he wanted to spend his first free evening in a month, but just as he was going to turn to leave, he had second thoughts.

Damon hadn't been in a mood like this for a while.

At least not since he'd gotten over the fact that Ric had compelled Elena's memories away. Those troubled waters had taken a few discussions with Stefan, Caroline, and Sheriff Forbes to navigate. Finally, it was Elena herself who broke through Damon's impenetrably ticked-off shell. She handed him her journal, and he read in her own words about how out of control she was that she was frightening herself and how lost she was without Damon as her anchor.

So what was bothering him tonight?

Alaric took a breath and decided to man up. He moved through the crowded bar and took a seat to the left of his best friend. "What's up?"

Damon grunted some kind of reply through a drink of the whisky in his hand. Judging by the way the bartender was studying him, it wasn't his first drink of the night, and based on the waves of hostility rolling off him, it wasn't going to be his last.

"Seriously, what's wrong?" Ric wasn't going to leave Damon alone this easily. His friend called him earlier in the day, saying he needed to talk. Just because he'd arrived late after getting stuck talking with his grad student and Damon had moved into kind-of-drunk territory wasn't an excuse to leave, even if he wanted nothing more than to go home. "Look. You called me, remember?"

Damon turned to almost face him. He guzzled the last of his drink and motioned to the bartender to give him another round.

"Damon?"

Damon shook his head. When he spoke, his words were surprisingly clear. "I'm in love with Elena."

Ric blinked in shock. He knew Damon was crazy about her. He knew that his friend had literally crossed the boundaries of time and space to be reunited with her. He knew Damon was beyond angry when he got back to the here and now only to discover Elena only remembered memories that he'd made the mistake of altering. But he'd never heard Damon say it so plainly.

His friend loved Elena.

God, the guy sounded like a love-sick teenager. Ric could deal with teenagers. He'd spent the last few years teaching them…or trying to teach them. He put his imaginary teacher hat on and settled into his seat at the bar. This might be a very long conversation. "And that's a problem?"

"Yep." Damon chugged at his drink. Right now, he seemed incapable of talking without it.

"Can I have a few hints or am I going to have to play Twenty Questions?"

"Do you know how often I've seen her lately?"

Ric squirmed in his chair. "I thought you were okay with her coming over to help." If Damon wanted Elena to spend more time at the boardinghouse, Ric wasn't sure if he and Jo were going to survive.

"I am. I am." Damon nodded, a pensive expression on his face. His eyes weren't looking anywhere specifically…just not at Ric. "That's not the problem."

"Do you want to tell me what the problem is?"

"Elena wants a baby."

Ric choked on his mouthful of beer. "That's not exactly a possibility."

Damon shook his head slowly as he tapped the rim of his drink with his index finger. "_The problem is…._it _is_ a possibility."

Ric placed his beer on the bar-top with a little more of a thud than he'd intended. He waved the bartender down and handed him a wad of cash. He glanced at his drunk-vampire-friend. This wasn't a conversation to be had while surrounded by all-too-human college students. "Let's go for a walk."

Damon didn't argue. The bartender didn't either. As far as he was concerned, Ric was doing him a favor by cutting Damon off. The pair made their way through the crowded bar, and it felt like all the other patrons gave a sigh of relief. Damon really had been radiating a mixture of frustration, conflict, and more than a hint of a threat.

Ric recognized this version of his friend, although he hadn't seen it in a very long time. He was one wrong word away from someone getting their neck broken or drained or heart-snatched. This Damon teetered on the edge of being dangerous.

As they walked in silence, Damon seemed to come to his senses, and Ric began to worry less and less about being Damon's next victim. Even with a version of the Gilbert-ring back on his finger courtesy of Bonnie, it was times like these when Alaric regretted his ties to the supernatural world.

"So, you want to explain that last comment? What do you mean, Elena can have a baby? We're not talking about some weird vampire-has-a-baby thing are we? Because that's kind of _Twilight._"

"No. Nothing like that." Damon shoved his hands in his pockets and stared up at the full moon overhead. Ric couldn't tell if his friend was stalling or if he was just having difficulty framing the words. "When Bonnie came back last year, she brought something with her."

Something in the tone of Damon's voice made goosebumps rise along Ric's skin. A thought came to mind that filled him with an equal measure of hope and fear. Screw it, this was Damon he was talking to, he was far more filled with fear. "Don't tell me…"

"Yep." Damon turned to him, his answer laced with a bitterness Ric didn't expect. "Bonnie brought me the cure. For Elena."

"Does Elena know?"

"Nope."

Ric sighed, a weight pressing down on his shoulders. "Then don't you think this is a conversation you should be having with her?"

A flicker of an emotion crossed Damon's eyes. Sadness? Relief? Maybe a hint of regret? Without explaining more, Damon clapped his arm on Ric's shoulder, his head bobbing slowly in agreement. "Yeah. I should talk to her."

Before Ric could talk with him more, his friend blended in with the darkness of the night.

* * *

The dorm-room door creaked open, startling Caroline. She jumped to her feet, concealing a blood bag behind her back. Her eyes widened and then contracted when she saw who'd walked into the room. "God, Elena, way to scare someone to death."

Elena allowed the door to close slowly behind her. She gave a dry laugh. "Technically you're already dead."

"Figure of speech." Caroline exhaled, and Elena could hear her pulse beginning to slow. "What are you doing here tonight?"

"This is my room too, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but you've been staying with Ric and Jo. If you haven't been with them, I figured you'd take a night to spend with Damon."

"Damon's out drinking with Ric. Boys' night out." Elena stared at her bed, surprised that she couldn't remember the last time she'd slept in it. Probably a good thing since it appeared that Caroline had begun to use it for some type of storage. She couldn't even see the bedspread beneath the papers, pamphlets, and envelopes.

Caroline scurried to pick everything up, but she dropped one brochure, and it drifted to the floor at Elena's feet.

Elena bent down and retrieved it off the hardwood floor. "Mt. Ranier, Washington?" Her eyes narrowed as she studied more of the pages in Caroline's hands. "Lincoln, Nebraska? Tampa, Florida? Austin, Texas? Are you planning a trip?"

Caroline's face fell, and she bit her lower lip. "Not exactly." She tossed the collection onto her bed, speeding to Elena's side. "We were going to tell you. I promise."

"What's going on?"

"People are starting to notice."

"Notice what?"

A tear glistened in the corner of Elena's eyes. "I've been a vampire longer than you have, Elena. Since I was seventeen. I'm almost twenty-one now. I've had a few too many '_You haven't changed at all_' comments."

"So you're leaving?"

"Stefan thinks we need to. The meter reader even said something to Damon last week." She hissed and covered her mouth with an expression that said she'd said too much.

"The meter reader said something to Damon?" Elena's ears rang. She couldn't believe she was hearing this.

"But you should be fine. You look different than when you turned. You've changed your hair. The way you carry yourself…it screams older. And you have almost two years on me."

"Damon doesn't."

"No." Caroline swallowed thickly. "Damon doesn't. At least Stefan doesn't think so."

Elena backed toward the door.

"Where are you going?" A wary expression filled Caroline's eyes.

"You're right. I need to be with Damon tonight."

* * *

Damon had only been back at the boardinghouse for five minutes before he heard the front door crack open. That meant it wasn't Stefan. Unless he was bringing guests to the house, he always came in through the kitchen. He hadn't expected Elena to come tonight. Since the twins arrived, she'd become a permanent occupant of the Saltzman couch.

But it _was_ Elena.

He'd know her footsteps on the stairs anywhere.

Something was wrong tonight, though. While her pace seemed normal, her footfalls seemed a little too heavy. It was as if she was trying to delay climbing to the second floor.

Once she finished climbing, she hesitated again, this time standing just outside his door. After what felt like an eternity, she tapped it open. He glanced up at her, but had to look away from the pain in her eyes.

"I didn't know you were coming to spend the night."

"Jo told me to go home."

"Pretty sure she meant your dorm room, but I'm not complaining." He scooted to one side of the bed, waiting for her to come and join him. But she didn't. She stayed fixed in the doorway like she'd been glued there.

"When were you going to tell me?"

"I'm going to need more of a hint than that."

"Caroline said the meter reader noticed you're not aging."

"Morris?" He waved his hand dismissing the thought. "He's also convinced that he saw aliens land in the woods last week. No one will believe him."

"But it's getting close, isn't it? Caroline and Stefan are planning where they're going. When do we need to leave?"

"No. It's fine. Don't worry about it." Damon shook his head, getting to his feet. "No one's going to notice you're not aging, not now."

"Maybe not me. What about you?" Her forehead wrinkled while she counted. "You've been here five years now."

"I can push it. I think I'll be fine a few more." He stood in front of her now, letting his index finger trail down her cheek, pushing a few errant strands of hair that had slipped out from her ponytail behind her ear. "Maybe I'll compel someone to put some gray streaks in my hair."

"Don't try to joke. I'm serious. How many years? Three? Four?"

"It depends." Damon tried to answer honestly. "I'm at Whitmore a lot now. That might buy me some time."

"Maybe five years. Five years, right? I remember what Stefan told me. Never stay anywhere longer than ten years."

Damon hesitated. His eyes said that he didn't want to have this conversation right now.

"Tell me." A spark of fire lit in Elena's eyes.

"Five more years. No more than that." He'd never been able to lie to her.

Elena struggled to breathe. A list of firsts she'd never see flashed in front of her. No first day of school. No missing first tooth. No stories of the twins' first crushes. "Well, then, what are we waiting for?" She sniffed, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand.

Damon's voice signaled that he recognized this Elena. It was the Elena who'd burned down her house. "Shh…we don't need to talk about that. Not right now."

"Why not? What will we do? Just disappear?" Her words were stumbling over each other. "I won't do that to them. I'm not just going to leave."

"Elena." His eyes showed that he didn't know what else to say, though. Everything she said was absolutely correct. He couldn't argue.

"I can't do that. I can't let them think I'll just leave them. What kind of godparents would that make us?" Elena pushed away from him, ran to the closet, and tugged down a suitcase from overhead. "Why delay the inevitable? Why not just leave now?"

Damon stood back in silence, watching as she threw an assortment of shirts and pants and jackets on the floor.

"It'll be easier this way, right? Easier if they don't remember either of us. Sure, Ric and Jo will be mad, but it's better in the long run. Maybe there's still a Gemini witch who could be godmother. Did anyone ever find Liv anyway?" She collapsed to her knees on the floor of the closet, dropping a handful of clothes on her lap. "Everyone has left me. Don't lie right now. I'm not that dumb. I know Jeremy's not at art school. He just left, and he didn't want me to worry. Everyone leaves. I don't want them to go through life like that. Thinking everyone who loves them is just going to leave them."

"And they won't." Damon bent down and scooped Elena up off the floor, after all the fight was gone out of her. "I promise." He placed her on the bed. For a moment Elena thought he was going to try his preferred method of distracting her, but he didn't. Instead, the look in his eyes simply echoed the same sadness that she felt. "It's been a long few weeks. You're tired. Just relax here for a minute. I'll go get you a drink."

Elena settled back on the pillow and tried to make her heart stop racing. She hadn't had a panic attack for years, but she felt the signals one was about to start. Her heard churned in her chest. A faint ringing filled her ears. Ever since Jo's comment earlier in the evening, everything felt more than just a little off.

She was training to be a doctor to fight against old age, sickness, and death…and those were the very things she'd never have to face.

The sound bottle opening filtered up from downstairs. He was going for the hard stuff. She must be worse off than she thought. No matter how hard she tried to fight it, she couldn't pull herself back from this precipice where she'd been so surprised to find herself tonight. Not just tonight, though. If she were being honest with herself, she knew she'd been building to this moment since she found out Jo was pregnant.

The reality of the life she'd never have was staring her in the face.

Footsteps on the stairs. Damon walked into the room with a fake-smile etched on his face. "Here you go. I know it's not your favorite, but just try to drink it. Then everything'll be okay."

Elena took the glass, surprised to see his hands shaking. He nodded encouragement to her, and she drank.

The ringing in her ears stopped. No, it was just muffled. The sound was still there, just not as pronounced.

She couldn't hear the sound of Damon's heart beating.

All around her, the world seemed to blur.

"What's wrong with me, Damon. What?" The glass tumbled out of her hand, the remainder of the drink pouring across the floor. "What's happening?"

Damon took hold of her hand, helping her to her feet. "Everything's going to be okay. You're going to be fine." He shook his head from side to side as he caressed her cheek with the palm of his hand. "You're going to be better than fine. Ellie Martin, you're going to leave this place and forget everything about your life here. Tonight, you're going to drive to Madison University. The address is already entered in your phone. Everything you need is already set up. Your apartment. Your bank account. Your textbooks are on your kitchen table. The school's expecting you on Monday."

"Damon, what? I don't understand. Who did you call me?" Elena's speech was muddled and confused.

"Ellie, you're going to meet a guy. You'll fall in love. The two of you will have a perfect family. You're going to be happy." Damon bent down, placing a chaste kiss on her forehead. "You'll have the life you've always dreamed of. But now it's time to say goodbye. I love you Elena."


	4. Chapter 4

Author's notes: Please forgive the time jump. I understand that many of you wanted to see how "the gang" dealt with Damon's decision, but I can only hang out in extended-grief-zone for so long. My apologies. I do think this chapter still addresses much of what y'all have been wanting to see, though, as a result of Damon's choice.

Warnings: MATURE – sensitive subject matter, violence, alcohol use/abuse, language, Stefan, Caroline, Bonnie

REMINDER: Elena's been compelled to believe her name is Ellie Martin. When other people talk with her, that's the name I'll be using. For ease of reading, when referencing her in the story, I'm sticking with Elena. Hope that's not too confusing.

* * *

The float slowly made its way down the packed street. Everywhere she looked, people were smiling, cheering, and laughing. They looked a lot happier than she felt. Who on earth thought wearing a hoop skirt with at least a dozen petticoats beneath it was a good idea in July.

Was it July?

It seemed like July.

Red, white, and blue streamers were festooned along almost every possible section of trim. In the distance, a gazebo was adored with patriotic-looking balloons and a banner she couldn't quite read.

"More candy! More candy!" A little girl with vividly red pig-tails called out as she chased the float.

She looked to the bucket at her feet. She'd run out of candy two blocks ago. "Sorry." She started to say more, but she was distracted as a pair of vividly blue eyes caught her attention.

A man with raven-black hair and a shirt just as dark waved from the center of the crowd. Why was he wearing something that dark when she could feel rivers of sweat beading down the back of her neck and dripping beneath the lace-trimmed neckline? He had to be practically melting. But he looked as cool as composed as he always did.

He always did.

He _always _did.

Elena sat up in shock, real sweat dripped beneath her collar and made her pajama top cold and sticky. She pulled her knees to her chest and rested her cheek on her kneecap, trying to calm her heart pounding in her chest.

It was a dream.

Not real.

Just like all the others.

And just like after all the others, Jaime was oblivious. He snored next to her with the intensity of a lumberjack trying to bring down a redwood. Heaven forbid she wake him to try to talk. The last time she'd tried, that hadn't gone well. How he survived napping in the crash room during his residency was beyond her. Of course, since his parents gave the endowment that paid for the wing the crash room was located in, when people heard him doing his chainsaw impression, they might just move on past and look for another med student to do the job.

She craned her neck to see the clock on his nightstand. The alarm would go off in ten more minutes. She didn't dare try to reset it. If she did, Jaime would miss his morning run. He needed his morning run. He'd made that abundantly clear one morning when she'd suggested a different type of cardio. He'd mumbled something about morning breath and rolled out of bed.

No need to bother trying to go back to sleep.

No, Elena slid out of bed and hopped into the shower and tried to grip hold of the last fragments of the dream still curling around the edges of her mind. She'd seen the courtyard before. Or maybe it was a town square. Last time it was dark. And she'd been in a car. And an explosion happened.

Her sub-conscious mind was much too creative. She should really start writing these down. They'd probably make a best-seller.

Elena turned the knob on the shower to high, shivering beneath the initial blast of cold water, but it proved to be exactly what she needed. Now, instead of focusing on the face of the man who kept appearing in her dreams, she was dancing around the shower stall waiting for their ancient water heater to decide to send hot water her way…at least that's what she was doing until the door to the bathroom opened.

"What are you doing?" Jaime ran his fingers through his still sleep-matted hair.

"Pretty sure I'm taking a shower."

"Already?" He narrowed his green eyes in a sharp glare. "You know I always take one before my run."

Before his run. And after his run. Jaime couldn't risk anyone seeing his hair in a less-than-perfect state.

"Can't you just wear a hat?"

He slammed his fist against the doorframe. "I have a routine."

She wanted to tell him to screw his routine, but that would just lead to trouble she didn't want this morning. She was already having enough of a bumpy start to the day. "Give me two minutes. I just need to finish washing my hair." She squirted shampoo and conditioner into her palm in a trick she'd learned back in the college dorm.

"I'll be timing you."

"You do that." She buried her head beneath the flow of the just-now-warming-up water. By the time Jaime got in, the temperature would be perfect. He should be thanking her right now instead of shooting her a death glare.

But Elena didn't always get what she wanted.

She gave her hair a final rinse just as he mouthed the word five. She grabbed her towel and ducked out of his way. "See. Plenty of time."

Elena had time to dry her hair, get dressed, and had just settled down at the computer when the beep from the kitchen signaling the coffee pot had started its brew cycle. It was perfectly timed for Justin's first cup of coffee after his post-run shower. She'd love a cup while she paid the bills, but she wasn't sure if that was the best idea right now.

When she opened the bank website on her computer, she shook her head yet again. The balance this month had refreshed to exactly what she'd started with last month and the month before that and the month before that and the month before that. No matter how hard she tried to persuade them, she'd never successfully gotten persuaded anyone on staff at the bank to give her the slightest hint for the mystery trust fund that perpetually kept enough money in her account to send her children and grandchildren to Ivy League schools.

The front door creaked open and she slammed the laptop closed. The state of her finances were none of Jaime's concern. When his mother announced the need for an air-tight prenup the night they announced their engagement, Elena was secretly thrilled that she didn't have to bring the idea up.

She slid back in the chair and got to her feet, slowly making her way into the kitchen, trying to decide on breakfast. Eggs were a no-go since she'd been too tired to go to the store last night, and she knew Jaime wouldn't have crossed the automatic-door threshold. She opened the pantry, looked at her options, and winced. Oatmeal. Again.

"Good morning." The scent of his aftershave drifted down to her as he stooped to kiss the back of her neck. It never failed. She was always expecting different scent, and when she smelled Jaime's cologne, she was caught off guard. "Sorry about the shower."

"It's fine." After a year of living with him, she'd gotten accustomed to his moods. "I should have waited for you to take your shower first. I wasn't thinking."

He eyed her with suspicion. "You have another dream?"

Elena felt herself flinch. Her recurring dreams started out as a joke, but now they seemed to annoy him. "It's Thursday, isn't it?" Of course, Thursday wasn't that different than Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday. Lately, they were striking with almost clockwork regularity.

"What was it this time? Standing under an umbrella in the rain? Dancing at a school dance?" Jaime's words were too-sharp for pre-coffee.

"No. I was in a parade."

"Parades are nice." He waited, his eyes searching her face, the silence asking a question he didn't voice.

"Yes, he was there. In the crowd."

Jaime hissed, slamming his coffee cup on the counter, sending a spray of the liquid onto the counter and his shirt. He threw her a look that said his actions were her fault. As he reached for a towel, he gave a soap-opera-appropriate sigh. "Do you think I want to hear about your _dream guy?"_

"He's not my dream guy. He's just a guy in my dreams." Who happened to really stand out, but Elena didn't risk telling her fiancé that. "Why don't you go change? I'll fix you some oatmeal too."

"I hate oatmeal." He glared at the pot she was stirring. "I'll get something on the way in to the hospital." Just before he walked out of the kitchen, he turned back to face her. "And remember Mom and Janine are coming to dinner tonight."

"Tonight? I thought we were going out to dinner tonight."

"Why would we be going out?"

"For my birthday." Seriously, did she need to remind him of everything?

"Today's not your birthday."

"But I'm off today. I work tomorrow. We can't go out then."

"It's the only time they can come over to plan the wedding. You should be thanking them. Without their help, you'd be doing this on your own."

"I know." Elena nodded stiffly, wiping the rest of the spilled coffee off the counter. "I'll fix something. Or maybe we could grill burgers? We haven't used the new picnic table yet."

"In this heat? No. If you don't want to cook, just go pick something up."

* * *

Stefan followed Caroline through the glass double doors. He didn't have to search for his brother. Damon was sitting in the exact same spot at the same oversized table where he sat every year. The very same seat in the very same restaurant where he'd been the night they were celebrating Elena's twenty-first birthday when Jo went into labor.

Caroline released Stefan's hand as she rushed to greet Bonnie and Matt while giving a too-friendly wave at Damon. Tyler muttered some kind of welcome from the far side of the table. They'd done this every year for the past five. The only thing that changed was who attended the not-quite-birthday party. Once Jo and Ric arrived with the twins, everyone would be here. Literally. The same group who had gathered that night surrounded the table now. Try as he might, Stefan couldn't remember another time when they'd all been together – not since that night.

Of course, he was overlooking one major absence.

Now Stefan was standing directly in front of Damon. Rather than attempt any type of awkward guy hug, he and Damon simply exchanged not-completely-relaxed nods. Things had never been the same between them since the night Elena left. Since the night Damon compelled her to leave. Stefan couldn't help but suspect that Damon partially blamed him for the way that night ended, and he hadn't been able to have the discussion with Elena on his own terms.

If Caroline had handled things differently….

If Jo hadn't mentioned being young and carefree…

If Elena hadn't been on the brink of a breakdown as massive as when she'd lost Jeremy, maybe things would be different. Damon would have been able to ask her what she wanted – to prepare her for the life he'd so carefully crafted for her. But he didn't get that chance.

At least that's what Stefan suspected Damon thought. But Stefan knew the truth. Just like Elena turned to keep him from becoming a ripper again, she'd have chosen to stay a vampire just to keep Damon from the pain of being alone.

At least those thoughts rippled through Stefan's brain when he tried to sleep.

Damon was alone.

No one questioned that.

More alone than he'd ever been – even when waiting to free Katherine from the tomb. While Damon's days still appeared to be filled by responsibilities on the town council, and he'd become the official after-school babysitter for the twins, each night he returned to the too-large boardinghouse.

Alone.

That's why they were all here tonight.

"Damon!" Twin noisemakers rocketed through the restaurant and landed directly at Damon's side. Stefan never dreamed his brother would be good with kids, especially not these since they were tied so closely to Elena's loss, but they were the recipients of the first genuine smile he'd seen in Damon's face so far that evening.

"Can we have soda tonight?" Noah bounced, holding on to Damon's arm for support.

"Mom said it was up to you."

"Since we're going home with you."

"They're spending the night?" Caroline didn't even try to hide her shock.

"It's the pre-birthday slumber party. It's kind of a tradition." Jo stepped over the bench, sliding to a seat beneath the red and white checkered tablecloth.

"They love it." The way Ric raised his eyebrows hinted that he and Jo loved it too. "Nina packed her nail polish."

"Damon does nails?" Now it was Bonnie's turn to be surprised.

"You'll be surprised at what I can do." He pushed up from his seat, Noah clinging to one arm while Nina took his other hand. "Let's go order. You two want cheeseburgers?"

"No pickles." Noah's eyes widened with almost-horror.

"No pickles." Damon nodded his head in agreement.

As he walked away from the group, Bonnie spoke first. "How is he?"

Jo shrugged a shoulder. "Couldn't ask for a better babysitter."

"That's not what I meant."

Jo nodded. "I know."

"How does he do it?"

"Act like he doesn't miss her?" Ric shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "No idea."

The group started to follow Damon and the twins but Matt held back, catching hold of Bonnie's arm. He waited until enough of the partygoers separated them from Damon before turning his back on them. He leaned close to her ear, speaking in a whisper. "I know how he does it."

"What do you mean?"

"He knows where she is. He's got someone making sure she's okay."

"How do you know that?"

Matt's eyes locked on Bonnie's as Stefan tried to pretend he wasn't listening to their conversation. "Because it's me."

* * *

"And you're sure you don't have any baby pictures for the table at the reception table, Ellie? Maybe an aunt or your grandfather?" Jaime's mother asked the same question she asked every time the wedding planning came up.

Elena gave the same answer she always did. "No pictures. I'm sorry. No grandparents. No aunts or uncles. My family was pretty small. Once the house burned…" She stood and walked away from the table before she had to endure another evening filled with forced smiles.

It would have been easier just to elope.

She'd suggested eloping multiple times – the first coming after seeing Jaime's mother recoil with horror when she informed the family of her I'm-an-orphan status. The woman looked like her son had just fallen in love with Annie or something.

She didn't need Jaime's money.

She didn't want it.

Once she made it clear that she could happily pay off her college tuition, medical school expenses, and buy a house on her own…Mrs. Jenkins finally relaxed a little bit. But this wedding planning was giving her a migraine.

"We still need to finalize the guest list." Jaime's sister pulled out her ever-present laptop. "Do you have your names ready, Ellie?"

Elena walked to the refrigerator, trying to mask her annoyance by pulling out the cheesecake she'd picked up on the drive home. Maybe if she left her head inside it long enough, they'd finish planning the wedding without her because this wedding stopped being about her a dozen decisions ago.

"Ellie? Are you just going to stand there letting all the cold out?" Jaime's mother sounded as aggravated as she felt.

"No." Elena reached past the cheesecake for the bowl of strawberries and the freshly-whipped cream she'd prepared earlier. After placing them on the kitchen island, she turned back for the chocolate cheesecake. "Just making sure I had everything."

Janine stood and walked to the kitchen island to help distribute the dessert. She seemed to be looking for something. Biting her lip, she rocked onto her toes, surveying the kitchen cabinets. "Do you have any wine?"

"I thought we'd fix coffee." Elena started toward the coffee pot.

"Oh, I think Janine's right. A nice cabernet would be perfect just now." Jaime's mother stood to join Janine in a search for wine.

"We've got some in the chiller." Jaime prompted helpfully. Of course he'd put wine in the chiller. He couldn't even pick up take-out for dinner, but he made sure to have his mother's favorite wine at the ready.

Elena pulled three wine glasses out of the cabinet as she flicked on the coffee maker. After Jaime uncorked the bottle, he began to pour.

"Aren't you having any tonight?" Jaime's mother looked suspicious.

"I really prefer coffee. I think it goes better with the chocolate."

"Your loss." Jaime lifted his glass on the way to his seat. "All the more for us."

"No need to finish it. I can stopper it." Elena suggested.

"Nonsense. It's never as good later." Janine settled behind her computer in a position that suggested they weren't going to end this planning session any time soon. "Now. I've already put our relatives in."

"And the friends from the club." Jaime's mother sipped from her glass.

"Right. The club friends as well. That brings the list to…" Janine toggled the keyboard to scroll up on the page. "It brings the list to 500."

Elena gagged on her coffee. "Did you say 500? The cottage won't hold that."

"Oh, did we not tell you? We changed the venue."

"The cottage just screamed hipster. Not the right feel for your wedding at all." Janine shook her head.

"Of course it's not." Elena nursed her coffee, sitting back in her chair, allowing the others to take control of the wedding planning meeting. After the first few times they'd met to plan, she'd discovered it was much more painless if she simply let them make all the decisions. If she tried, they'd just come back and change things.

And so the wedding plans continued around her. From time to time, she was consulted about the color of the invitation or whether or not they wanted their initials embossed on the napkins or what time would work better for her to meet to taste cakes at the bakery Janine used for her wedding.

By the time they were ready to call it a night, two empty wine bottles sat on the counter, and Elena had lost track of the glasses Jaime had to drink. Since neither Janine nor her mother seemed drunk, Elena suspected he crossed into too-much land a bottle ago.

"Thank you for all your help." Elena glanced at Jaime as she tried to give an overly gracious goodbye to her future mother and sister-in-law. "I really appreciate it."

"You're welcome. We'll see you on Saturday for the dinner?"

"Dinner?"

"To introduce you to the members of the club."

Elena flinched. "I think I work on Saturday."

"Well then change it."

"She'll change it." Jaime nodded, standing in the doorway. "We'll be there."

The door closed with a too-loud click. Jaime turned to her. "What do you mean you have to work?"

"Work. As in, work… I have to cover the shift for Lacey."

"We'll talk about it later." He picked up a wine bottle, tilting it to the side. When he noticed some left inside, he began to pour it into a fresh glass.

"Don't you think you've had enough?" Elena asked the question and immediately regretted it.

* * *

Matt wasn't sure why he did it. He'd already been here this month. He'd sat outside, pretending to be tying his shoe until he caught a glimpse of her. The month before that, he'd been checking his phone and acting like he was lost during a walk. Neither scenario was perfect, but he'd quickly discovered this was one of those neighborhoods where people didn't even recognize their next-door neighbors when they ran into them at the grocery store. Thankfully, that meant no one thought he was out of place.

Elena's house was halfway between the restaurant and Matt's apartment. It wasn't out of his way at all. Tonight, he'd park his car at the park down the street and act like he'd lost his dog. He hadn't tried to come this late at night before, but if someone called security on him, he could flash his badge. No one needed to know he was even on the street.

That was the plan.

And it almost worked.

Matt arrived just as two women walked down the sidewalk and got into a car parked on the corner. Judging by the volume of their conversation, they'd had more than a few drinks. He quickly made note of their license plate and texted it to a friend on patrol in the city.

Then he began a too-slow walk down the street. That's when he first heard them. He couldn't make out the words. But he heard Elena.

Every time he heard her, his heart skipped a beat.

Most of the time, he just pretended like he was dead.

Except on nights like tonight when he was acting as Damon's personal spy. The idea almost sickened him, but he knew he'd be doing it with or without Damon. He would have looked for her. When he called to tell Jeremy that Elena was human again, he promised Jeremy he'd help keep her safe, and he always kept his promises.

And then he heard her scream.

Not an I'm-having-fun scream. Or a my-team-just-won-the-game scream. This was the kind of scream he heard when he'd been called out to break up a domestic disturbance at one of the houses on the wrong side of the tracks on his beat.

One thing he'd learned in his years as a cop. Abuse didn't care about your zip code – just the more space between your house and your neighbors, they were less likely to call 911. She screamed again. It sounded like she was begging someone to stop.

Matt couldn't just stand there and listen. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and walked to the front door. When no one answered, he rang the bell. He didn't expect Elena to answer the door.

Her eyes were too bright when the door cracked open, and Matt's trained eyes didn't miss the way she wiped the trickle of blood from the corner of her lips with the back of her hand. "Hello?"

"Is this Maggie's house?"

"Um. No." Elena looked genuinely confused.

Matt was confused too. He didn't know where to go from here. "Is this 212 Breckenridge?"

"No." Elena shook her head, stepping out onto the porch. "This is Canyon Circle. Breckenridge is the next street over."

"Sorry. Sometimes the GPS is wrong." Matt feigned an apology.

"It's not a problem."

"I'm going to bed." A man standing in the shadows stormed off, and Elena gave a visible sigh of relief.

Elena hesitated at the doorway, waiting for the man to leave before turning back to Matt. "Do you need anything else?"

"No. Just trying to be on time for dinner. Thanks for your help."

"Any time." She gave a half-smile. "And you're welcome."


	5. Chapter 5

Warnings: Mature – violence, alcohol use/abuse, adult content, Stefan, Caroline, Bonnie

* * *

Matt drove.

And drove.

And drove some more.

He didn't exactly know where he was going, although one answer was clear. He was not going to go see Damon. He didn't want to have to arrest him for murder. Jo and Ric would kill Matt if something like that happened.

So he needed a different plan.

Or at least someone to talk with. He'd just crossed into Mystic Falls when a likely answer came to him. He drove to the once-familiar town square and turned right. Bumping over potholes that he didn't remember, he arrived at a small brown house that almost blended into the darkness surrounding it.

Seeing the lights still on inside the house filled him with a sense of relief. At least he wasn't going to have to wake her up. But if anyone would want to know what he thought was happening to Elena, it would be Bonnie.

He stepped out of the car, trying hard not to slam it and disturb the quiet of the night. As he walked up the sidewalk, he worked through what he planned to say. Because, really, he didn't see that much. But he'd been a cop long enough to know when something felt off.

And something felt very off tonight.

He raised a fist to knock on the door, but it opened before he had the chance.

"Matt?" The heavy scent of incense mixed with smoke drifted out the doorway, making Bonnie seem almost as threatening as he'd long-considered her Grams. "What are you doing here?"

"We need to talk."

"Sure. Come on in." She opened the door wider and beckoned him inside. For someone who almost swore off witchcraft, it was fairly plain to see that was no longer the case. She took her responsibility as protector of Mystic Falls seriously. Now Matt just needed to see if that veil of protection could apply to someone who once was a resident of the town. "You do know it's almost 2 a.m., don't you?"

"Were you asleep?"

"No."

"Then it's not too late for me to be here." Matt took a seat on the couch and instantly began to fidget. Even with all the time he'd spent being surrounded by the supernatural, he still preferred his life being grounded in the mundane.

And here he was, about to ask a witch for help. "Look. You know I told you that Damon has me watching out for Elena."

"Right."

"Her house was on the way home from the restaurant. I went by tonight." Matt proceeded to tell Bonnie about everything he'd seen – from the two women who'd obviously had a few too many to hearing Elena scream to seeing her at the door with blood at the corner of her lips.

Bonnie sat quietly, taking in every word. When he finished, she uttered a string of curses he didn't realize the witch even knew. She ended the tirade with an annoyed shake of her head. "She's doing it again."

"You've lost me now."

Bonnie perched on the edge of the couch like a cat ready to spring on a mouse. Her lips puckered like she'd sucked on something sour, and she seemed conflicted but finally plunged on. "Back when Elena was dating Stefan…" Bonnie paused as if it hurt her to reveal a confidence. "Oh god. She'd kill me for telling you this, but I guess it doesn't matter anymore. She doesn't even remember it. But he hit her. And one night, he got mad and threatened to drive her off Wickery Bridge."

"He did what?" Matt sprang to his feet without even realizing what he was doing.

"He hit her. Threw her against the wall. Threatened her. Made it seem like it was her fault she did it." Bonnie shook her head like a grandmother who'd just heard gossip about one of her grandchildren's best friends. "I tried to get her to leave him then, but too much time had passed when she finally told me. She said they'd worked through it. As long as he had his appetite under control, then the rest of him was too."

"So she dated Stefan back when he still had a drinking problem…and now this guy too."

"Sounds like it." Bonnie chewed down on her bottom lip. "And you know Elena."

"If she thinks she loves him, she'd not going to give up on him that easily."

"But you can help. Can't you?"

Bonnie stared back at him, apparently not surprised that they'd hit this part of the conversation again. Matt couldn't totally blame her for her marginally annoyed expression. Through the years, Bonnie had become the go-to person when they needed something, and was quite frequently ignored when they didn't. Matt tried to remember the last time he'd just stopped by to visit his old friend, but nothing came to mind.

"What do you want me to do?" Bonnie sighed in exasperation.

"Can't you…fix her?"

"I can't un-compel her, Matt." Bonnie suddenly looked tired. "Trust me. I've tried."

That surprised him. He never thought that Bonnie would have interfered in the world of all-things-vampire, at least not without someone asking her to help. "You tried?"

"Right after Damon did it. But I also tried back after I got back from the prison world. Elena wanted her memories back, but even then it didn't work."

Matt tried not to show it, but she'd been his only hope. He didn't know how to help Elena without staking out her house, and even then, he'd just have to be lucky enough to catch the jerk on a bad day.

"Tell you what. I'll keep trying to think of something." Bonnie suddenly looked tired. "If I think something will work, I'll let you know."

* * *

When Jaime hit the snooze button for the third time, Elena decided that gave her permission for the first run through the shower. After all, she had to work while he was off. If he wanted to claim the shower earlier, then he should have gotten up when his alarm went off the first time.

Elena was annoyed enough as it was that the too-early-alarm brought her dream to an abrupt end. She'd had another one of _those _dreams. Funny, this was the first time she'd had two in a row. In this one, she'd been climbing down a circular staircase in the fanciest house she'd ever seen. She was wearing a blue dress that made it seem like she was in some sort of pageant. Something was bothering her, though, as she descended the stairs.

Someone was missing.

Her escort.

He wasn't where he was supposed to be. _Stefan_. Stefan wasn't where he was supposed to be. Stefan Salvatore. She had to laugh. Her subconscious was getting creative with the names it was inventing.

When she got to the bottom of the stairs, a voice called out another name. _Hers_? Elena Gilbert was escorted by Stefan Salvatore. But he was nowhere to be found.

Instead, the raven-haired man from her dreams appeared again. When someone gripped her hand, she knew it was him before she even turned to look. He was there…just when she needed him.

Elena sighed as her feet touched the floor. She could take one of those fantasy heroes now. Maybe that's why she kept dreaming about him. The muscles in her back tried to lock as she stood up. She twisted and something pinched. Not what she needed today.

Heading into the bathroom, her heart pounded a little too fast. She wasn't sure what she'd find in the mirror. Elena leaned over the sink, pulling her hair back from her face. Her cheek wasn't too bad. Just a little red. Her eye would definitely take some concealer. She was getting a little too good at this.

Her fingers gripped the hem of her pajama top, intending to pull it over her head, but she had to stop halfway and take a breath. She'd been standing too close to the corner of the kitchen counter. When she'd been knocked off-balance, her ribs caught the sharp point behind her, saving her from falling but leaving a heck of a bruise. Using the same amount of pressure she'd use if she were examining a football player who took too hard a hit, she probed the edge of her rib cage and hissed.

No wonder so many of the guys practically jumped off the table during an exam in the ER. She wouldn't be able to tell without an x-ray, and an x-ray wasn't exactly an option right now…but she was fairly certain at least one rib was cracked.

She got into the shower, hoping the steam would help her let off a little steam of her own. It had been months since he touched her – at least touched her like that. If his mom hadn't been so determined to bring out the wine…

Elena pushed the thoughts behind her. All she was doing right now was making herself more annoyed, and that wasn't the way she wanted to start the day. The alarm went off again in the next room, and she heard a grunt that signaled he was awake this time.

She finished rinsing her hair and ducked out of the shower before Jaime had a chance to open the door. By the time he made it down the stairs, she was almost finished spreading peanut butter on her whole-wheat toast while waiting for the coffee maker to signal it was finished brewing.

"Good morning." He came to stand behind her, brushing her hair off her neck, and stooping down to give her a kiss at the base of her hairline. So this is how they were going to do it this morning. Of course he'd pretend like he didn't remember what happened.

She wasn't going to play that game anymore. Not now. She spun to face him, giving him the death glare that made uncooperative patients hold still and be quiet. "I don't know, is it?"

"Don't be like that."

"You're upset that I'm mad?" She raised the corner of her shirt, revealing more purple than she'd noticed in the bathroom. "I think you broke a rib."

Jaime wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close to him, the pressure in her belly signaling he wanted to go the route of his traditional apology. "Look. I didn't mean to. You know that."

"This happens when you drink." She pushed his arms down and away from her, but she couldn't step back since he had her pressed against the kitchen island. "That's why I wanted to serve coffee."

"I know." He really did sound like he was sorry. "But you have to admit, I've been better."

"Because you haven't had a drink in months."

"Exactly." He smiled the grin that had first caught her eye. "And I promise. After last night, even if my mom wants to open a bottle, I won't do it. In fact, while you're at work, I'll get rid of all the wine in the house. I'm sure I can find someone to pass it off to."

"You'd do that?" Her stomach growled, and she was teetering on the edge of so-starving-she-was sick. "If you want this to work," she gave her ring a pointed look, "you're not going to hit me again."

"I do want this to work. I love you." He ran his hand down her arm, taking hold of her hand, bringing her ring finger up to his lips. "I'll do whatever it takes. I promise."

Her stomach churned again, and her heart pounded in her chest. This was the time she should tell him. This also was exactly when she shouldn't tell him. _Get a grip, Ellie. _Even her own thoughts were annoyed with how long she'd delayed telling him. "That's good because…"

Her work cell phone sounded, interrupting the conversation. The hospital never called her unless it was an emergency. At this moment, it was one of the most poorly timed emergencies in existence.

* * *

Ric rolled onto his side, trailing a fingertip along Jo's thigh. "We should see if we can talk Damon into celebrating half-birthdays too."

Jo inched closer to Ric's side of the bed. "We could probably get him to agree to it, but only if Nina leaves the nail polish at home."

"Did you see him cringe?"

"We shouldn't laugh." Jo felt her forehead wrinkle. When she'd first realized what Damon was, she'd never have predicted he'd become a member of their family. "He seems lonely."

Ric nodded. "I think he is."

"Do you think he regrets it?" Judging by Ric's expression, Jo didn't need to elaborate on what _it _she meant.

"I've talked to him about it. Probably more times than he wanted to. She'd never have agreed to leave him." Ric's head thudded against the pillow, the playful tone of the morning at an end. "But she couldn't keep going as a vampire…and he wasn't going to make her, not when he had a way to fix it."

"But was it the right decision?"

Ric rolled onto his back, folding his hands behind his head. "Back when I was on the Other Side..." He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Jo's face, obviously remembering the fact that his wife didn't like to be reminded that her husband spend almost a year as a ghost. "I saw everything. She didn't want to transition. She wanted to die instead of turning."

"Then why did she?" Jo propped herself up on her elbow. How had she known Elena for this long and no one ever told her this part of the story? It had been easy to see that Elena was conflicted about eternity as a vampire, and once Damon took Elena's decision out of her hands, things became too dicey to discuss the topic at length. But she'd never realized Elena hadn't chosen her former life for herself.

"For Stefan. He's always been…a little unstable." Ric winced at his word choice. "And since he's the one who let her drown, she was afraid he was going to break if she died a second time. If she didn't turn, she knew he'd turn back into a ripper. She wasn't going to let that happen."

"So that's why…" Jo didn't get a chance to finish her question. Her cell phone began to ring on the nightstand. Since everyone who knew her knew that it needed to be a near-death-experience to bother her on a Saturday morning, she knew it must be a crisis. "What did Noah break this time?" She rolled onto her side, took the phone in hand, and flinched when she answered.

"What?" She motioned for Ric to hand her something to write with. "Can you repeat that? I can be there in…fifteen minutes." She was already on her feet by the time she ended the call.

"Noah okay?"

"That wasn't Damon." She flew through the bedroom at a run, throwing on jeans and last-night's t-shirt without even bothering to pause to take a shower. "A school bus rolled on the way to a band tournament. At least fifty high schoolers are on board."

"Crap. Do you need me to do anything?"

"You can drive."

Jo choked down a granola bar as she typed hurried messages into her phone. As the head of the hospital's disaster response team, she had the privilege of waking more than one staff member up and cancelling a half-dozen's plans. As they drew closer to the scene, it was far worse than she thought. The bus didn't simply drive off the road, tipping into a ditch. It missed the curve at the top of the quarry and tumbled down the whole slope, coming to a rest on its side half-in the water below. All along its route, jackets lay tangled with band instruments and folders and coolers and more too-still high school students than Jo had ever seen.

"Oh my God." Jo stepped from the car, allowing herself one minute of panic before she snapped into ER-physician-mode. "I'll call you tonight to pick me up." She turned to look back at the scene. "Or maybe in the morning."

"Sure thing." Ric's expression was caught somewhere between shock and horror. "Just let me know."

If Ric said anything else, Jo didn't hear it. She was already jogging toward what appeared to be the triage area. Sirens in the distance signaled the imminent arrival of more emergency crews.

"….and you'll take the area in the main tent. Tag them. Stabilize who you can. Then send them on their way." The head of the ER at Mayfield Methodist was pointing to something in the distance. Jo had never been more thankful that she'd participated in the regional emergency drill last month.

He looked up and forced a pleasant expression on his face. "Dr. Saltzman. Good to see you. You'll be at the site of the wreck." He gestured over his shoulder with his pen. "I've already got a few team members over there, but you're the most senior."

Without waiting for additional instructions, Jo took hold of a portable kit and rushed to the gravel road. Even from this distance, she could hear the shouts and cries of the injured mixing with instructions from rescue personnel. She slipped and slid on the loose dirt and finally caught up to the rest of her team members.

And her team members almost had an extra person to treat when she found herself staring straight into the dark brown eyes of Elena Gilbert.

"I have a patient with a compound fracture." Elena stared at Jo with absolutely no recognition on her face. "I was waiting to get your opinion on how best to move him."

Jo simply stared.

And stared.

And finally snapped back to her job. "Where is he?"

"This way. I've already done my best to immobilize it, but I don't want to damage the tendon." Elena knelt beside a boy who couldn't be older than fifteen. His face was covered with a thin sheen of sweat, his skin a mottled shade of gray.

Jo dropped to her knees to examine the boy, giving him a quick once-over, more than a little impressed by what she saw. "Looks good." She glanced up at Elena, nodding quickly. "Let's get him over to the tents."

Whether by coincidence or some kind of sick cosmic twist of fate, Jo found herself working side-by-side with Elena for the rest of the morning. They were an effective pair with Elena often seeming to anticipate exactly what Jo would want or need next – just like Jo had been the one to train her during her early years of medical school…which is exactly what she'd basically done. Gradually, Jo even managed to forget the years they'd spent separated.

Elena was still one of the most gifted young doctors she'd seen. While she'd lost her vampire-blood-advantage, her compassion and ability to connect with patients gained her almost instant trust while at some point during her training, she'd also apparently learned to distance herself and make difficult decisions when necessary.

When Jo stooped to one of the youngest patients' sides, she found herself in the midst of one of those difficult decisions. Just minutes earlier, the girl had been joking and telling the rescue teams to work on everyone else…she was fine. But then she fell silent. Too silent. Jo pressed two fingers to the side of her neck.

Nothing.

"Crap!" Jo shouted a string of curses. Whoever had done the initial triage on the girl had missed something….something big. "Must be internal bleeding." She called out to no one in particular. No pulse. No respiration. Jo looked up to see which of her team members was closest to her, not surprised to see who it was. "Elena! Get over here."

Elena's head snapped around, locking eyes with Jo. A flicker of recognition danced in her eyes before it was replaced by confusion. "What did you just call me?"

"Ellie." Jo corrected herself, mentally cursing her mistake. "That's your name, right?" She nodded for Elena to take over the chest compressions while she focused on the rescue breathing.

"Yes, I just thought…" Elena blinked as she kept a perfect rhythm with the compressions. "I was hearing things. Sorry."

* * *

By the time Elena got into her car, the sun was already beginning to set. She hadn't looked at the time in hours, but she guessed it was closer to eight than seven. Her clothes were covered with blood and grime and sweat. When she got home, they were destined for the garbage.

All she wanted to do tonight was take a shower and go to bed.

She was even too tired to eat.

Eating. _Damn. _The dinner at the club was at seven.

She almost didn't want to look at her phone. She knew what she'd find. But she did it anyway. Sliding her finger to wake it, no fewer than twenty messages greeted her. The first fifteen were from Jaime…on the last few, it appeared he was doing some type of countdown.

Three were from Janine, asking if she was alright and saying they couldn't wait for dinner any longer. They'd have to introduce her to the club members at another time.

The final message was from Jaime's mom, spewing out an apology from any rudeness that might have come from either Jaime or Janine. Someone at the club had noticed the news coverage of the accident on the oversized television in the bar. The reporter had focused in on Ellie helping to transport a patient. She'd never been so proud to introduce Jaime's fiancée to the other club members – even if it had been by pointing her out on the television screen. Ellie wasn't supposed to worry about coming by the club, she just needed to go home and rest.

Elena shook her head, starting the car's engine. Of course she was just going home. Not only could she not walk into the club given her current appearance, if she tried to go there now, she'd probably fall asleep in her appetizer.

She just wanted to go home.

She closed her eyes for a second, visualizing her shower. But it wasn't her shower. And the bedroom she pictured in her head wasn't her bedroom. Instead of the bright Cape-cod cottage she bought two years ago, she could only see a house that seemed more like a museum than a place someone would live.

She adjusted the air conditioning vents to blow directly on her face, wondering if she was even safe to drive. After all, she was seeing things…and she was hearing things.

The doctor she was working with seemed familiar.

And she'd called her Elena.

Yes, Jo tried to cover for her mistake, but Elena was certain of it. She could tell by the _oh-crap_ expression that rolled across her face when Elena questioned what name she'd heard. Jo called her Elena – just like in her dream.

Elena put the car in drive. If she stayed here too long, she was going to end up sleeping in the car or falling asleep on the drive home.

Home.

She hated the fact that driving home made her stomach churn. For the past few days, it churned enough on its own, but after last night, she was afraid of what she'd find when she walked through the front door. Jaime had been so good for so long. As long as he'd been careful with how much he had to drink, he was fine.

He was fine when he was with her – when she could help make sure he was careful. But tonight…tonight he'd been at the club with his family. And they didn't keep track. Of course, they didn't know why they needed to do it. They weren't the ones who ended up bleeding when he'd had a little too much.

She'd been so lost in her thoughts, she didn't realize she wasn't paying attention to her driving. Instead of turning left to go home, she'd turned right at the main traffic light. She rolled her eyes when she realized she was going the complete opposite direction. Turning the wheel, she drove past the _Now Entering Mystic Falls _sign before doing a u-turn to correct her error.

Finally, she pulled into her driveway, stifling a hint of fear in the pit of her stomach. Jaime's car was already here. That was either a good sign or a not-so-good sign. She reached into the passenger seat to grab her bag, and a sharp pain stabbed her side. She'd done too much today. Too much lifting. Too much carrying. Too much bending. Just too much…after last night.

The front porch light flicked on just as her key turned in the lock. He was waiting for her. She had a list of apologies ready on the tip of her tongue as she opened the door. "I'm so sorry to miss the dinner."

"Don't worry about it. We saw the news."

This was not the greeting she'd been expecting, but she'd take it.

"How are you doing?" A look of genuine concern was on his face as he reached to take her bag.

"Tired."

"I can bet." He nodded, making his way toward the kitchen. "Mom sent you a bowl of tortilla soup. She figured you'd be tired." He pointed to a container on the counter. "She even got them to put in some chips and queso. You should have seen her. Pointing you out to all her friends. I should have come with you. I didn't know how big the wreck was." This was the Jaime she'd gotten engaged to…the one she'd met on her first day after transferring to the new school.

"We handled it alright." Elena stepped out of the kitchen and walked toward the master bedroom. "I am tired, though."

"Take a shower, and I'll heat up your dinner." He'd almost walked out of the bedroom before he turned. "And if you're feeling like it in the morning, Mom's scheduled a tour of the place she's thinking about for the wedding. She thought you might want to see it."

Elena might want to tour the place they were considering having the wedding. The suggestion made her want to laugh, but laughing made her ribs hurt. "I'll try, but I have that interview tomorrow at noon."

Jaime shook his head. "Not a problem. It's in the same town. You'll be able to make your interview – no problem. Honestly, it's not too far from where you were today, actually. We're touring a place called Lockwood Manor."


	6. Chapter 6

Rating: Mature – adult content, sensitive subject matter, violence, alcohol use, Stefan, Bonnie, Caroline

* * *

Elena stood at the top of the winding staircase, her ears ringing so loudly that she couldn't hear their tour guide. They'd already covered most of the historic home after arriving at the back entrance as requested. Jaime's mother and sister _ooohed _and _aaahed_ over the gardens, the ballroom, the library, and the music room. For a few minutes, Elena was almost excited about getting married here.

Until their guide opened the double doors to show the historic home's crowning glory. "And just imagine coming down the staircase while the string quartet plays the bridal march."

After taking one step on the marble tile, Elena knew she didn't need to imagine coming down the staircase. She'd already done it in her dreams.

"What do you think?" The woman who'd been leading them on the tour turned to Elena, pen perched over planner. "Shall we set a date?"

"February 6th." Jaime's mother was already reaching into her purse to retrieve her wallet.

For a moment, Elena thought she'd heard wrong. She squinted and saw that, yes, the Lockwood Manor employee was turned to the page marked February. "I thought we were looking at November."

"November?" The two older women looked at each other, exchanging a laugh.

"Ellie, dear, this is a difficult venue to book."

"We're scheduled solid until the last week of January."

"February 6th is your first Saturday you have available, isn't that correct?" Janine consulted her ever-present clipboard.

"Yes, ma'am, that's correct."

Jaime's mother cut her eyes back to Elena. "It's not as if you're in a hurry." She did the same fake-clearing of her throat that became so ever-present when she found out Jaime had moved into Elena's house that it made Elena offer to schedule a consultation with a respiratory specialist. "Because you're not exactly _waiting."_

An uncomfortable silence fell over the group as the tour guide did an impression of someone who couldn't speak English.

"We'll take it." Jaime's mother opened her checkbook, pen at the ready.

"I can pay." Elena tried to remember if she'd tossed her checkbook in her purse. "Do you take credit cards?"

"Nonsense." Jaime's mother took the clipboard forcefully from their guide's hands. Her lips were set in their I-have-more-money-than-you-do expression. Elena knew this was one battle she wasn't going to win.

And she had more than enough battles on the way. She forced her lips into the same kind of smile the other future-daughters-in-law at the club seemed to favor. "Thank you, Mrs. Jenkins. That's very considerate of you."

Elena hated calling the woman Mrs. Jenkins. She'd been with Jaime for years now, but she'd never been told to call her anything else. At least it was better than having to call the woman Mother or something. The thought made her cringe. If she hadn't seen old pictures of the woman when she was pregnant, she'd have sworn Jaime and Janine were adopted, instead of being some type of almost-Stepford-twins.

Elena stepped away from the group, needing a little air and a whole lot of distance. She didn't even know where these thoughts were coming from. She loved Jaime. Didn't she?

As she approached a bank of photographs on the wall, she fiddled with the ring on her finger. It really wasn't her type of ring at all. She'd rather have something simpler. Plainer. Easier to wear while on duty at the hospital. Instead, she always had to take this ring off before going on duty for the day. The thought of leaving a ring like this, _a family ring, _in her locker…she'd just rather not deal with the consequences if anything happened to it.

"Thank you for your time."

"It's my pleasure. Please don't hesitate to contact me again if I can be of service."

Elena tried to tune out the pleasantries being exchanged behind her as she studied the pictures. Each one showed a group of teenagers, probably a mixture of juniors and seniors, dressed in period clothing. While none of them were in a parade like in her dreams, one was wearing what appeared to be the exact dress she'd worn.

_Founder's Court, 1983_

"Ah, yes. Our Founder's Courts. City's pride and joy." The worker spoke from over Elena's shoulder, making her jump from surprise. "You know, you look a lot like…."

"Ellie!" Jaime called from the front door. "Are you planning on staying here all day?"

"Um. No. Sorry." Elena turned away from the bank of photographs, annoyed that she felt her cheeks reddening from embarrassment. "I'll be right there." She nodded her thanks to the Lockwood Manor employee and hurried out the door.

Jaime's mother was staring at the screen of her phone. "Now, let me see. Linda gave me the name of the restaurant." She used the pad of her index finger to adjust her screen. "That's it. The Mystic Grill."

"We'll meet you there." Jaime nodded like the plan had already been decided.

"I don't have time to go to lunch." Elena studied her watch. Technically, she had too much time to kill. Her interview was at 12:30, and it was barely past ten.

"Not lunch, dear, brunch." Jaime's mother stood with her hand perched atop the door to her Volvo.

"We have to celebrate." Janine chimed in. "After all, how long have we been looking for the perfect venue?"

"Let's go." Jaime led the way to his car, and Elena followed behind, cursing herself yet again for not driving herself. They were both going to Mystic Falls. Driving together made sense – at least it did this morning. Now, when she was forced into more Jenkins Family Bonding time rather than preparing for her interview, the thought process was questionable.

Muttering an apology she didn't really feel, she dropped into the passenger seat as expected. Of course, Elena often found her thought process around Jaime a little fuzzy. When she'd arrived at college after a less-than-spectacular exit from Whitmore, he'd been the first person to greet her. He helped her ease into the junior-level classes seamlessly, and she soon found herself in the midst of one of the more exclusive cliques. His family's money ingratiated him with even the most difficult professors. Elena's unusual arrival was soon forgotten as she became something of a teacher's pet, largely due to her association with Jaime.

As time progressed, they started dating. It wasn't exactly a conscious decision. Instead, it was just something that happened. Elena never questioned why someone who seemed as amazing as Jaime wasn't already with someone else. When she first arrived in town, she heard a few whispers, but they seemed to come from women who wanted to date him but had been refused.

It wasn't until their first year of medical school that the first hint of the Jaime that her fellow students whispered about first appeared. He'd always had a temper, but after a test went badly, she'd stood back in horror as he punched a mirror – shattering the glass and requiring a few dozen stitches.

But it wasn't until after he slid the ring onto her finger that he'd first turned his anger on her. That was a mistake, though. A mistake that earned her an inch-long scar at the corner of her eye. He hadn't been throwing the plate at her, just next to her. As he'd repeated over and over in the car and in the emergency room, she'd just been standing too close to the wall. If she'd been a little farther away, it wouldn't have touched her.

Just like he wouldn't have touched her without drinking. The first time he'd hit her, she'd tried to leave. She'd made it to her car before he dragged her back inside, begging her to stay, promising it would be the only time.

She should have kept going.

But he hadn't touched her in so long.

Not until the combined stress from the wedding and the growing pile of unsuccessful interviews began snowballing, she'd been waiting for him to explode. Somehow, she knew it was building and building – just a ticking bomb within him.

She should have left.

Now, as she rested her folded hands on her lap, she knew it was too late. They'd never let her leave now. She shifted uncomfortably, adjusting the air conditioning vents to blow more steadily in her face.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Doesn't seem like nothing."

"My jacket's just too warm. I should have left it in the car this morning."

Jaime nodded, apparently convinced, as he took a left turn from the farm road onto what seemed to be the main street leading into the city. Elena had to admit, the little town was quaint – even quainter than the chief of the Mystic Falls General emergency department had described it to be.

The high school looked like something off a television show with the oversized howling wolf painted on the side of the wall. Elena sat back, almost enjoying the ride in the car.

Until she saw the clock tower.

Then a chill ran up her spine. When they turned into the square, she threatened to lose the tentative hold she had over the contents of her stomach. She knew this street. She'd dreamed it. She'd been just across the way when she threw candy to the little girl.

"Ellie?" Jaime stared at her as if something was wrong.

Something _was _wrong, but she just couldn't explain it. "Sorry. I was just thinking about later."

He gave a grunt of a reply, motioning for her to get out of the car and follow him into the restaurant. Judging from the bustling crowd and line at the front host stand, Jaime's mother's friend was right. This was the most popular place for brunch in town. Elena cast a glance back to the square. It also seemed like it was the only place for brunch in town.

"Five, please." Jaime's mother was smooth. If Elena hadn't been looking for it, she'd never have noticed the $20 bill she slid down the host stand to the teenager holding a stack of menus.

"Oh, yes. We have your reservation right here." The girl nodded, pocketing the money. She came out from behind the stand and led them to a circular booth in a section of the restaurant that looked like it was traditionally used as part of the bar. "Your server will be right with you."

In no time at all, a too-bouncy twenty-something appeared at the edge of their table. "Welcome to the Mystic Grill." She placed paper coasters in front of them. "Is this your first time joining us?" The occupants of the table bobbed heads in turn. "Well, you've come to the right place. Can't find a better brunch in the town. Can I suggest mimosas to start? Maybe some sangria?"

"Of course, we're celebrating." Janine glanced up from her menu, nodding at the waitress.

"Mimosas for everyone?"

"No." Elena shook her head so quickly, she was lucky she didn't lose an earring. She didn't miss the look-of-death Jaime shot her. "I have a job interview in two hours, I need to be coherent."

"Of course she does." Jaime's mother gave Janine a look that suggested the kids learned the death-glare just past birth.

Ellie had to admit. The food was excellent. Far better than she expected from a restaurant that seemed to lean heavily on the town's reliance on its historic roots. Still, most of the guests seemed to be locals – they all knew each other judging by the way they stopped to chat as they walked past neighboring tables.

She'd once dreamed of living somewhere like this. A place where a community was just as much part of her family as her real family. That would mean she had a family. She had to take a sip of water when she realized she was currently sitting in the midst of her family, and she wasn't sure she liked what she saw.

As they were finishing their meal, Elena glanced at her watch. "I need to get to the hospital." She hesitated, waiting to see if Jaime would take her hint. They'd planned for him to drive her, but he seemed to be settled comfortably in his seat. These people saw each other every day. What else did they have to talk about? Surely he wasn't interested in the violet napkins versus lilac ones conversation. "Jaime?" She stood and waited.

Instead of getting up, he leaned to the side, pulling his keys from his pocket and tossing them to her. "They'll give me a ride home."

"Of course we will."

"Sure. No problem." Janine gave Elena a hint of an encouraging smile. "Good luck at your interview."

"Thanks." Elena hurried out the door. She'd lost track of the time, and she didn't know exactly where she was going. If she'd realized she was going to be driving herself, she'd have keyed the address into her phone earlier. She wasn't watching where she was going when she plowed into someone's back. "Oh, I'm so sorry."

The dark-skinned young woman's eyes were widened in an emotion caught between shock and horror. Had she hurt her?

"Are you alright?" Elena scanned the woman's back, trying to figure out what she'd done to render the woman speechless.

"Yes." The woman shook her head. "I'm sorry. You just…really remind me of someone. I was just caught off-guard."

"I should have been watching where I was going. I'm sorry." Elena juggled her phone, annoyed that the little wheel indicating it was thinking was still thinking. "Um, are you from around here?"

"Yes." The woman nodded.

"I should have gotten the address earlier, but I wasn't thinking. I'm not from here, and I need to get to the hospital. Can you tell me where I should go?"

"Sure." The woman's gaze locked with hers. Elena couldn't shake the feeling that she'd met the woman before. "You're going to drive to the end of the street. Then turn left at the light. When you pass the library, turn right. You'll be able to see it from there."

* * *

Elena was practically dizzy by the time she'd finished her first round of interviews – meeting the hospital's chief of staff and human resources director along with the head of the emergency room. When the ER director asked if she'd like to meet one more staff member after taking a guided tour of the building, she'd jumped at the chance. She'd never found a place that felt like home so quickly, so she'd be remiss to do anything to seem less than thrilled to spend more time there, even if every minute she spent inside the walls made a sense of things not being quite right grow within the pit of her stomach.

All hospitals feature similar designs.

They have trauma centers.

Operating rooms are hidden away from most of the visitor areas.

An overwhelming amount of tile makes them easy to clean.

During her time in college followed by medical school, she'd either worked in or toured more hospitals than she cared to count.

Something about this one was different. As she studied the waiting room outside the cluster of staff offices, a feeling of deja-vu seized hold of her chest just like when she'd been following the blue-jacketed volunteer into the Grayson and Miranda Gilbert Memorial wing. She'd known the floor was going to be covered with black and white tile that looked like a 50's era diner before the doors even opened.

Now she was playing a twisted version of Memory while waiting for the director of the emergency room to return with the last staff member that stood between her and a lab coat with Mystic Falls General Hospital embroidered on the lapel. After what felt like an eternity, the tall man made his way down the hallway toward her with a female doctor trailing behind him. "Ellie. Thank you for waiting. I'd like to introduce you to Dr. Saltzman."

Elena was happily surprised to see the woman she'd worked with at the site of the bus accident, but it didn't completely explain the absolutely stunned-into-silence expression on Dr. Saltzman's face.

Dr. Saltzman cleared her throat while appearing to fight for breath. Elena was tempted to ask if she needed to use an inhaler, but the older doctor recovered fairly quickly, offering a hand in greeting. "Didn't expect to see you again today."

"You two know each other?" The ER director looked back and forth between them.

"Not exactly, Theo." Jo answered dismissively. "This is the medical student I was telling you about this morning."

His eyes widened and he grinned like someone had just called out his lottery numbers. "The one you told me I needed to find?"

"The very one."

"Well then. I guess you can just say I'm psychic." He appeared to be ready to join in their conversation but had to stop when his name was paged through the overhead monitor. "Duty calls." He clapped Jo on the back. "I'll let you take over here." He held up a finger to Elena. "But stop by to visit with me before you leave. I think we have a few things to discuss."

"Yes, sir." Elena's head felt like it was spinning. She'd hoped today's meetings would be fruitful, but if this next conversation went well, she could almost taste the job offer.

"Come on this way, Elena." Dr. Salvatore flinched, catching her mistake. "Sorry, Ellie."

She'd said it again.

Being called by a different name in her dream was odd.

Having this woman call her the same name was a weird coincidence.

But hearing it a third time? It was enough to make Elena feel like she'd run her fingernails across a chalkboard. Despite her excitement surrounding the interview, Elena now felt flustered and more than vaguely unsettled. She followed Dr. Saltzman into her office with the same wariness she might have used stepping through the threshold of a haunted house.

"Why don't you have a seat? I just need to return one message if you don't mind." Judging by the flush coloring her cheeks and sense of discomfort radiating off Jo, she needed a second to compose herself – not deal with an emergency situation.

That made two of them. Elena took the offered chair, commanding herself to relax. Jo was perfectly nice, even if she sucked at remembering names….well, she seemed to remember names just fine, but she'd bestowed on Elena the wrong one.

Elena took a breath, calling upon the last few years' yoga lessons she'd come to rely upon in situations where she felt her sense of self-control fleeing. She studied the office. Not too different from other executive offices she'd seen. Maybe this one had a few more personal touches than others, but that made it a little easier to relax.

Judging from the pictures, Dr. Saltzman had two children. If Elena's guess was correct, they were twins. The little girl and little boy smiling out from the prints just seemed too close in age for anything else. In a few pictures, a rugged-looking man joined the pair, making for an attractive trio. The boy definitely favored his father, particularly in a photo where the little one sat on horseback with the man standing just behind. The girl looked like Dr. Saltzman. In a picture that had to be from a recent birthday party, the little girl was showing off freshly-painted nails while Jo had a birthday hat atop her head. Looking at the pictures was working. She felt herself relax to a degree where a sensible conversation was possible.

Until Elena noticed an 8x10 portrait sitting on a side-table in the room. In the photograph, the babies were infants. They couldn't have been more than a few hours old. One pink bundle. One blue. A woman who wasn't Jo was laughing, juggling both in her arms while the man from Elena's dreams smiled over her shoulder. It took every ounce of control in her body to keep from bolting out of the room.

Elena was looking at a picture of herself.

* * *

Jo tested her car's ability to corner on the back roads leading through the less-heavily-traveled section of Mystic Falls. Why the hell hadn't Damon sold this monstrosity and moved into civilization? It wasn't like he needed all the room. She'd appreciate it if she didn't have to drive twenty minutes to get to his house in an emergency.

And this was an emergency.

She'd called him twice with no answer. If he was making a run to refill his blood supply, he'd better check his phone and soon. She had a crisis on her hands.

_They _had a crisis…he just didn't know about it yet.

Her car kicked up dust as it rocked to a stop in the circle drive. She jumped out of the car, not bothering to pick up any of her things. Her heels clicked over the flagstone walk as she tried to sort out exactly what she was going to say.

Crap. She was just going to have to wing it.

Arriving at the door, she chose to ring the bell and knock on the door. If he was just trying to have some _alone time, _he needed to get over it. For a split second, she wondered if she should have brought Ric with her. He had a technique of keeping Damon calm in a crisis that didn't exactly work for her.

When Noah fell and hit his head on the sidewalk, the men had gone through half a bottle of bourbon during the time it took for the ER surgeon to put three stitches in place. Jo just didn't have the right tolerance for alcohol to deal with Damon in a crisis. Besides that, she needed a clear head right now.

The door opened unexpectedly, sending Jo tumbling inside.

"Did I have the time wrong?" Damon stood in front of her, half-shaved with wet hair. "I didn't think you needed me to watch the kids until later." He beckoned her with his head. "Just a second. I can be ready in five minutes."

She followed him, not really sure where to start. "Um. No. It's tonight."

But when he heard what happened, Damon might be canceling their plans.

"So what's up?" The faucet in his bathroom trickled on, and he called out to her down the stairs. "Need some advice for a last minute anniversary present?"

"Not exactly."

She shoved her hands into her pockets to disguise their shaking. While she walked around the study, she examined the random photographs scattered on the shelves. The first time she'd been here, these had been sterile bookcases. Yes, sterile bookcases filled with priceless first-editions but holding nothing else.

Now Damon had a collection of candid pictures that would suggest he was an amateur photographer. Caroline and Stefan leaning against a tree at a backyard barbeque. Bonnie's face the night Jeremy proposed. One of Ric and Jo each sleeping with a twin on their shoulder. Elena might have taken that one.

These shelves held everyone Damon cared about.

All but one.

When he compelled her to leave, he'd scoured his house, removing every trace of her existence. But Jo knew Elena still lived for him where it mattered most…in the place no one could touch. The ghost of Elena was never too far away.

"Did you need something?" Damon's hair was still wet, but the shaving cream was gone. He toweled off his chin, raising an eyebrow to accentuate the question.

"We've been doing interviews for the new pediatric specialist in the ER."

"I remember hearing you complaining to Ric about it."

"We had the final round today."

"And?"

"We found someone." Jo knew she was dancing around the issue. She mirrored his movements, not-completely-unconsciously keeping the couch between them. Finally, she could tell she was reaching the end of his patience. His eyes were no longer relaxed. They reminded her of a movie she once watched of the wilds of Africa. He seemed like a predator studying his prey.

Nonsense.

This was Damon.

The fact he had super-human senses was just part of the package, and she was sure she had her adrenaline set on high. "She's everything we wanted. Great credentials. Excellent scores at medical school. Young. She wants to settle here and raise her family. Apparently this is exactly the kind of town she'd dreamed of living in."

"Sounds great. She driving a hard bargain for a salary? You need a little donation?"

"No." Jo struggled to swallow. "I mean it. She's everything we dreamed of. Excellent in the field. I worked with her yesterday at the bus crash."

"So will she not agree to come?"

"No. Exactly the opposite." Jo felt like her heart was about to pound outside her chest. "Damon, it's Elena."

* * *

Elena tried to shrug off the sense that something wasn't right. Everyone had a real-life doppelganger, didn't they? One of her professors in school even said so. With so many people in the world, the odds were simply on the side of science. Somewhere, everyone had a twin.

Elena just didn't expect to look at a photograph of hers today.

When Dr. Saltzman explained the reason she kept calling Elena the wrong name, she almost believed her. But something about the way her voice rose at the end of each explanation coupled with the beet-red flush of her neck made a question buzz like a mosquito in the back of her brain. She tried to smack it, but it kept flitting about – just out of reach.

Today wasn't a day to dwell on uncomfortable questions.

It was time to celebrate. She'd just signed the contract for her dream job. Yes, she probably should have talked with Jaime about it, but he'd have to be happy for her. What were the odds that she'd be able to find a job she was so perfectly suited for within driving distance to her house? While it would be nice to move to Mystic Falls, a half-hour behind the wheel wasn't too bad. She knew Jaime would be happy to stay within ten minutes of his mother's house.

When she stepped out of the car, she was running a list of restaurants through her head. Jaime would want to go out to eat. That's just how they celebrated. Well…publicly acceptable ways to celebrate. The list had narrowed to the steak place or the Japanese place they'd gone the night he proposed by the time she opened the door.

"Jaime? You home?" She stepped into the house, dropping her purse onto the wingchair next to the picture window. "Jaime?"

Surely he wasn't still out with his family. The interview had taken hours. Far longer than she'd planned, but she'd walked out of it with a contract. He could hardly complain.

"Jaime?" She mounted the stairs, fighting back a tiny sense of discomfort. The house wasn't that big. Where was he? She walked into the bedroom and spotted the jacket he'd been wearing earlier draped over the foot of the bed. Her curiosity getting the best of her, she wandered toward the bathroom. "Jaime?"

"You looking for me?" He came out of nowhere, closing the bedroom door with his heel. If that movement wasn't enough to make her heart race, the fact she could smell the alcohol radiating off him from across the room did it.

"Yes." She fought to display a cheerfulness she didn't feel. Elena reached behind her to turn the doorknob to the bathroom. "Let me go to the restroom, and I'll tell you all about it."

But the door was locked.

"When were you going to tell me?" Jaime's jaw was set in a stiff grimace.

"What are you talking about? I'm just about to tell you about the job. They made me an offer." Her voice was shaking, and she hated it.

"That's not what I'm talking about." His voice was a monotone.

He'd hit her before, but even then, she'd never been afraid of him. But now she was afraid. He approached her with the same stealth a cat used to stalk a mouse.

"You wanted coffee with your cheesecake. And then today at brunch. At first I was just embarrassed, not celebrating with the rest of us. But then I realized what was wrong."

Oh God. Elena tried to force the doorknob to turn by sheer force of her will.

"Why didn't you tell me you're pregnant?"

Elena's throat felt as dry and thick as if she'd swallowed cotton. "I wanted to tell you. I tried."

"You tried?" He'd moved past monotone into a threatening of mocking her. "How hard is it to say the words _I'm pregnant? _That's why you freaked out at changing the wedding day. How big will you be by then?"

"About seven months."

"Seven months?" He struck the foot of the bed with enough force to make the floor vibrate. "So you're what? Eight weeks? Ten?"

"You're the one who's the obstetrician. Figure it out." Elena couldn't fight the rising tide of her temper.

"Do you know how much this screws things up? How could you make a mistake like this?"

"Me?" Now he'd awakened a wave of anger inside her. "Pretty sure you were there. And it was probably the night I'd told you it wasn't a good idea."

"How hard is it to remember to take a stupid pill?"

"You try figuring out what time it is during a 36-hour shift. And why the hell is it my fault?"

"Because you're the one who fucked things up." He launched himself at her, and she had no time to prepare. She knew he was mad. But he knew she was pregnant.

His first blow knocked her into the wall, sending a trio of paintings to the floor, shattering the glass at their feet. The second blow came too fast to block. It was soundly in the middle of her belly. The third caught her under her chin, bouncing her head against the doorframe.

_The world blurred, and she wasn't in the bedroom anymore._

_She was standing in a clearing in the woods. A cloth-covered dummy stood awkwardly in front of her. A man's voice spoke over her shoulder. She made a fist, catching the dummy beneath the chin._

"_Good job, Elena." The man in Dr. Saltzman's pictures gripped her shoulder, with a pleased smile on his face. "That'd level almost any guy. And if it doesn't work?"_

"_Knee him where it hurts."_

"_Exactly."_

Elena didn't understand the memories or the dreams or the visions, but she knew that man was at least giving her fantasy self-defense lessons. She did as she'd been told. She made a fist and used every ounce of strength in her body to knock Jaime off balance.

She didn't knock him out, but he was drunk enough that she moved him off his feet. Without waiting to see where he'd land, she sprinted out of the room and into the hallway, ducking through the second entrance to the bathroom while listening to him following too-close on her heels.

She made it.

The door slammed, almost catching his fingers. Throwing all her weight against the door, she kept him from opening it, not relaxing until she turned the lock.

"Open the door!" The wooden door buckled, but didn't break. His fists pounded. The door pulsed with each strike of his designer shoes. A string of unintelligible curses echoed in the house followed by claps against the stairs and finally the front door slammed shut.

* * *

Damon had just finished listening to Jo's third attempt to explain what the hell happened in her office when the doorbell sounded again. If this was another problem, he was going to have to call Ric because he just didn't feel like drinking alone.

And he really needed a drink.

He unlatched the door, opening it with more than a vague sense of trepidation. Bonnie was the last person he expected to find waiting for him. She didn't even wait for an invitation, she merely pushed past him, nodding a silent greeting to Jo.

"I saw Elena today."

At least he didn't have to drag anything out of her. He'd already played that game long enough with Jo. "And that explains why you're here?"

"No." Her lips were narrowed to the point where they were almost invisible. As she aged, she'd become more and more like Sheila. He'd never really liked Sheila, even if she'd been friends with Stefan. The old witch had too much supernatural superiority for his taste. "Did you know she's getting married?"

"Matt told me." He fought to keep the edge out of his voice. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Jo flinch with surprise. He'd never told them he had Matt following Elena for a very good reason. No one else needed to know where she was. They didn't need to be put through the pain he felt every day, having her so close but still too far away.

Now she wasn't going to be far away at all.

Not since she'd just become the newest doctor at Mystic Falls General. While he was happy for her, he still wished Jo had thought of a decent reason not to hire her. Having her moving in and around the town was going to raise too many questions.

She could only hear the you-look-like-Elena-Gilbert line so many times before she started to ask questions. He knew her too well. She'd ask questions. That was just what Elena did.

"Do you know about the guy she's engaged to?"

"Dad died in a private plane crash when he was a teenager. Mom's a member of the Junior League, the Garden Club, and a country club I can't even get in. Twin sister seems to be basically employed by their mother. He's going to graduate from medical school at the same time Elena is." Damon had done his homework.

"Did you know he's a jerk?"

Damon frowned. Sometimes Elena's taste in men was questionable. After all, she'd fallen for him…and his brother. "Can't be worse than Stefan on a bender."

"You might want to think again." Bonnie shoved a stack of papers his direction. He skimmed the articles. During his freshman year at a school in Florida, he'd racked up so many complaints against him, he'd had to leave town. DUI. DWI. A cluster of fraternity-guys-gone-wild nights. A rape charge that disappeared.

Elena was engaged to a party guy with a bad attitude.

Damn.

He narrowed his eyes at Bonnie. She was wearing her judgey-est expression. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"You compelled her to leave because you wanted her to have the life she always wanted, right? Being human. Having a normal life. Kids?"

"And?"

She reached into her pocket, drawing out an all-too-familiar box. A box that shouldn't have existed. "Now the choice is yours. Two prison worlds. Two cures."

Time stood still.

For Damon, that was saying a lot.

Three sets of eyes stared at the plain box. One vampire. One witch. One former witch. Before anyone had a chance to process the prospect Bonnie had just presented Damon with, a knock sounded at the door.

"Did someone post a sign saying I was holding a party tonight or something?" Damon practically growled as he walked away from Bonnie and Jo. If nothing else, he was glad for the new arrival. He needed a reason to be away from the other two women for a moment.

He opened the door, unprepared for what he found.

He was staring into the eyes of Elena Gilbert.

Eyes filled with sadness mixed with pain mixed with anger. Unshed tears sparkled at the corners, and he had to focus to keep himself from staring at the purple smudge building on her jaw.

"Damon. Next time you compel someone, you might want to be careful with what you say. When you told me to have the life I always dreamed of, you should have known the only one I dreamed about was the one I had with you."


	7. Chapter 7

Matt reached into his locker and pulled out his car keys. This had been close to a day from hell. Not one. Not two. But three hit and runs just in the last two hours of his shift. All three victims described basically the same car, and that ticked him off even more. Thankfully, no one was too badly injured – more of a nuisance than anything else.

Still, he'd really wanted to catch the guy.

One of the wrecks was just a block from his house. Jenni could have been in one of the cars the guy hit. If his fiancée had been hurt….well, it was just good that Matt hadn't been the one to arrest him.

Of course, no one had that honor yet.

"You going to be at the ball game tomorrow?" His former partner, Trent, wrapped his fingers around the top of Matt's locker before he had a chance to close the door.

Matt shook his head. "We're having lunch at Jenni's folks."

Trent's lips turned up at the corners as he tried not to laugh. "That girl's got you wrapped around her finger."

"Maybe I just like her family. Her dad's grilling steaks." Matt pried Trent's fingers from the top of his locker and carefully shut the door. "Dude can cook."

"But you're missing the game. Might be the last one of the season."

"There's always next year." Matt turned to walk out of the locker room. "See you Monday."

"If you change your mind, we'll have a seat for you."

"I won't." Matt waved over his shoulder already halfway to his car. He was ready to go home. He should go home. He should go straight home and slide into his loveseat and wait for Jenni to get home from her shift at the hospital. She'd probably want to talk about napkins for the wedding or something, but he didn't mind. For the first time in his life, he was on the cusp of having a real family.

And that's where he got stuck.

His future with Jenni was as bright as Elena's future with Jaime was bleak. It was twenty minutes out of his way, but he couldn't help it. Not after what he'd seen the last time he drove past. He knew Bonnie told him that she'd take care of it, but maybe it was the cop in him that kept him from being able to walk away.

Well, that and the fact that a long time ago, he'd imagined his happily ever after involved a girl named Elena Gilbert. The drive from the station to Elena's house had become so familiar that his car could almost drive itself there.

It only took four songs on the radio tonight before he was turning into the gated subdivision, thankful that the gates hadn't closed yet for the night. He'd had to flash his badge to the guard once, but he didn't want to make a habit of it. No need for people to start asking questions about why he kept driving out.

Two rights and a left, and he found himself in the all-too-familiar cul-de-sac. Kids played soccer at the end of the street. A group of teenagers were engrossed in a pickup basketball game. Typical night out here.

Except for Elena's house.

It was completely pitch-black. Not a single light appeared to be lit inside the house. If it weren't for the tiny light glowing from the doorbell, he'd have assumed they'd lost power.

The first niggling hint that something might be wrong flitted around his head like some kind of invisible gnat. Elena never left the house totally dark. Ever. It was a habit she started in childhood, and it carried over to her new life here.

But then he had to admit to himself that this wasn't the first time today he thought something was wrong. All day he'd been fighting the urge to drive past the house to check on her. Now he just hoped he wasn't too late.

A tapping at his car window almost sent him through the roof. He'd be screwed if this had been a real stake-out. Maybe that's why he was still on patrol.

He rolled the window down, surprised to see a gray-haired woman glaring down at him. "Do you need something?"

"What are you always doing here?" Her face was contorted in an expression that reminded him of his elementary school librarian when she was annoyed.

"Excuse me, ma'am?"

"Don't you fake that confused expression. You were here just a few days ago. And last night. And three times earlier this month." She pulled out a notepad from her pocket and thrust it in the car. She'd recorded his license plate number, where he'd parked, and the times he'd driven by. Hell, she probably once was a librarian. "I'm the president of the neighborhood safety patrol. You're not sneaking by me." She tore the notebook out of his grip. "So what is it? Do you have a thing for Ellie?"

"What?" He sputtered his reply. "No. No. I just have a friend who's worried about her. Look," he slowly reached into his back pocket, "I'm a cop. My friend isn't sure if Jaime's a good guy. He asked me to just keep an eye on her."

For a minute, the woman didn't look convinced, but she gave a quick nod. "Your friend's not wrong. I've called the police on him half a dozen times. He always talks his way out of it." She clucked her tongue. "She never lets them press charges." Her fingers drummed the roof of his car. "You should have been here earlier."

"What do you mean?"

"It was the worst I'd ever heard. She was screaming so loud, I could hear her over the television." The woman rolled her eyes. "By the time the police got there, they were both gone, though."

"Gone?"

"Gone." She nodded. "He's going to have fun when he gets back home. He hit two cars on the way out."

"Was she with him?" Matt's blood pressure surged with the thought that Elena might be at Jaime's mercy.

"No. She left on her own about ten minutes later."

Ten minutes? What the hell was the response time out here? He pulled himself out of his thoughts. "Thank you. I'll tell my friend." He rolled the window up, leaving the woman still standing in the middle of the street.

* * *

Time froze as blue eyes locked with brown.

Damon wasn't even sure if anyone in the room was still breathing. For one of the first times in his life, he was completely speechless. Less than five minutes ago, Bonnie had presented him with the one thing he never thought he'd see again…and now the one person he never thought he'd see again was standing right in front of him.

Damn, this had been quite a night.

"What did you just say?" Jo was the first one to regain the ability to speak.

"I…I…" Whatever Elena had just said was going to have to wait a few minutes. Right now, her eyes began to blink slower and more slower, and her pupils started to dilate.

And then she dropped.

Fast.

Hard.

If Damon hadn't been a vampire, she would have landed flat on her back on the brick stoop. But he was a vampire. And he'd never let Elena fall. "Elena?" He looked up, ready to call for Jo, but she was already moving his direction.

"Probably just the shock. It's not every day that you find out that nothing about your life is real." Jo pointed to the couch, the expression on her face giving him a lecture far more dangerous than words. "Put her in there."

"It might not just be the shock." Bonnie had reclaimed the ability to speak just as Damon lowered Elena to the couch cushions. She flinched as if she was readying herself for a fight. "Matt said her fiancé hit her."

Jo narrowed her eyes, pressing two fingers to Elena's neck. A look Damon couldn't quite read came over her face. "At the bus accident, she was favoring one side." She reached for the hem of Elena's blouse and the color leaked from her face.

"Crap." Jo muttered a string of words that would get him banned from visits with the twins for a month. Her fingers probed Elena's side. "Definite cracked rib. Thready pulse." Her eyes darted to Bonnie. "Call 911."

Elena's side and her stomach was a mottled mixture of black and purple. But that wasn't the worst thing. Now that Damon was focused on her stomach, he noticed something other than the bruising. "She's pregnant."

"No." Jo paused her quick exam.

But the sound was unmistakable. One slow. One fast. Both were struggling. "I can hear the heartbeat."

Seldom in his 160-odd years had Damon truly lost track of time. He'd been less aware of it, yes. The passage of time occasionally faded into the back of his consciousness. Really losing track, though? That simply didn't happen.

At least not until now.

Now Damon's entire focus was on the tandem heartbeats and the fact he was hyper-aware of every sound in the distance as his ears sought the single one he most needed. He fought back a bitter laugh.

A vampire.

A former witch.

And a witch.

Three supernaturals stood watch over one who was all too human, and none of them could really do anything to help other than simply wait.

* * *

Matt almost made it home before his phone started buzzing in the seat next to him. He'd put a call in to his precinct as well as the neighboring ones to warn them that a dangerous driver was at large – cautioning them that he suspected he might have identified their hit and run culprit.

He'd driven the streets surrounding the community to no avail.

As much as he hated to admit it, he wasn't going to find Jaime tonight. That was probably just as well. Given what he'd just learned from Elena's neighbor, he wasn't certain he actually trusted himself to be the one to arrest Jaime.

Now his phone was ringing. That was always a bad sign. Jenni hadn't gotten fully used to being the almost-wife of a cop, and whenever he was late, she seemed to picture being met at the door by his captain delivering bad news. Matt slowed his car and began to pull off the winding road to answer. This wasn't a road that was safe for any type of distraction, one wrong twist of the wheel, and a driver would careen down the side of the not-quite-cliff.

"Hey. I'm almost home." The words had just slipped out of his lips when he focused on the rubber skid marks on the street in front of him. And then he noticed the broken bits of brush at the side of the road. He'd lost track of whatever Jenni was telling him. "Um. I take that back. I might be a while. I think there's a wreck here."

He flicked off his phone and tossed it into the seat next to him. As he stepped out of his car, his ears were already searching for the telltale hum of a car's engine. It didn't take too long to identify it. An engine rumbled where there should have been silence or simply the chatter of frogs and crickets in the night. He carefully stepped to the edge of the road, not surprised to see a faint glow of headlights below.

* * *

"If you pace much more, you're going to wear a path in the floor." Ric cautioned Damon with mock-impatience. Damon wasn't sure when Jo managed to get a message to Ric, and Damon didn't have a clue who was watching the twins on such short notice, but Ric was in the hospital waiting room by the time Damon and Bonnie stepped through the doorway.

Damon thought he'd completed his last night waiting in here years ago.

Now on the same night Elena walked into his life, he stepped back into the room where it all started. The first domino in his decision to take her decision away from her. At the time, everyone was telling him he had to do it. Everyone said Elena needed this. She needed her humanity. She needed the chance to live.

Each thought…each feeling…each what-you-should-do had been another domino in the precarious train. And his last decision, the one he chose not to involve her in, had been the one that made the whole set collapse.

He saw that now.

"You thought you were doing the right thing." Ric spoke with more confidence than Damon felt. How many times had they had variations of this same conversation since Damon had made that last decision on Elena's behalf?

Ric never told him what he would have done in the same situation. But looking into the eyes of the man who was almost Elena's father told him the answer. Ric wouldn't have done it. He wouldn't have done it then. And now looking where his actions had put Elena, he definitely wouldn't have done it now.

Damon really needed to throw something.

Or eat someone.

Or simply go back to the operating room and force his blood to work.

But he couldn't do any of them now. Now he simply had to sit and wait and know that he'd let Stefan's advice play on his weakness once again. Maybe if Stefan hadn't been so sure…maybe if Elena hadn't been so happy with the twins…maybe if he'd actually stopped and asked if she wanted to take it.

So many maybes.

Tired footsteps echoed in the hallway. Jo walked through the doorway still wearing blood-spattered scrubs. Damon didn't want to focus on whose blood it was. He'd recognize it in a heartbeat.

Heartbeat.

"How is she?" Damon had to ask because Jo was stalling. He'd never seen her quite so tired, not even when both Nina and Noah were both teething at the same time. She'd gone without sleep for a week before they asked Damon for help. And she looked positively rested back then compared to this moment.

Jo ran her fingers through her hair, her cheeks drawing up in what could possibly be considered the most forced smile that Damon had ever seen. "She's going to be okay." She nodded to Ric like she was trying to will her statement into being the truth. "Yeah. It was touch and go for a little while. That cracked rib had punctured a lung. If we'd waited five more minutes…" Her voice drifted off as she let Damon and Ric fill in the blanks.

A heaviness descended on the air in the room. An unspoken question practically shouted into the silence. Damon's throat tightened as if he'd swallowed straight vervain. "And the baby?"

Ric's eyes widened to silver dollars. That was when Damon realized no one had filled Ric in on that little detail.

Jo's face said it all. Instead of voicing an answer, she just shook her head.

"When can I see her?"

"They're moving her into her room in an hour or so. If she's stable, you can go up then."

If she's stable.

Damon didn't care if she was stable or not. He had to see her. He had to beg forgiveness for something he did that was unforgivable. He had to look into those eyes one last time before she told him to get out of her life forever.

Minutes ticked past.

Ric shot him more than one glance that hinted he might have vervain in his pocket and he wasn't afraid to use it.

Finally, Jo's phone buzzed. "She's in 412." Jo slid the phone in her pocket, shaking her head. "And she's asking for you."

That was all Damon needed to know. He flew up the stairs and was standing outside the door of her room before an elevator would have even had a chance to register he wanted to go up.

He stood in the hallway for a moment, just taking the time to appreciate that she was here. He was actually looking at her again.

She was too thin.

She was too pale. Her cheeks had little distinction from the hospital-white pillow beneath her head.

The corners of her eyes tightened as if she were in pain.

Before he decided if he was really ready to go in the room without Jo or Ric to soften the blow, she turned toward the doorway and saw him. Her fingers beckoned an invitation.

For the first time that he could remember, and awkward silence hung between them. There were so many things he wanted to say…needed to say…but none of them mattered. None of them made a difference. None of them could bring back the last five years.

"I know why you did it, Damon." Elena's voice was surprisingly strong for someone who'd just had major surgery. Of course, she'd always been stronger than he'd expected her to be. "And I almost understand."

"Almost." Damon repeated. He wanted her to scream and rage and be angry. That was what he deserved. And yet, here she was, saying she almost understood. She was truly back to her old self….forgiving him when he definitely didn't deserve it.

"But why didn't you ask me what I wanted?"

"Would you have done it? Would you have taken the cure?"

Elena took a long breath, closing her eyes, and he almost thought she'd fallen back asleep. "You know I wouldn't have."

"That's why I had to make the choice. Because I knew you wouldn't leave…even if it was to go have the life you always wanted."

Elena shook her head slowly, her dark hair rippling on the pillowcase like melted chocolate. "That's where you're wrong. And that's why the compulsion didn't work."

"My compulsion always works."

"Not this time. Because this time you were wrong. You thought I wanted to live some kind of human fantasy life." She cringed at the word fantasy. "But it was never the life I dreamed of having. Damon, that's what you said when you compelled me. You wanted me to have the life I'd always dreamed about. And I did. I dreamed about you, Damon. About our life…here in Mystic Falls. The dreams never stopped. I always knew something was wrong. The life I was living…wasn't the life I was supposed to have."

Damon was stunned into speechlessness.

"I think that's why I remembered. It was your compulsion that brought me back. I finally remembered the life I'd always dreamed about. And it was the life I had with you."

This was going far better than Damon had imagined, and that very fact made him nervous. "Aren't you angry?"

"Of course I am." Elena flinched. "But right now, angry is too much work. I know you, though. I wanted to make sure you weren't going to go do something dumb like take off your daylight ring in some kind of penance. You need to still be here when I'm feeling like being angry at you."

Damon wanted to smile, but he couldn't. This was also the Elena he remembered – the one who saved her anger for just the right time. Was it a bad thing that he was kind of happy to be able to have her yell at him again? Especially since he deserved it so badly. "I'll plan on being appropriately yelled at soon."

Something was still bothering him.

Something she needed to know.

"Elena." His voice caught in his throat. "It's about the baby."

The corners of her lips pulled taught. She already guessed what he was about to say.

"Jo said they did everything they could."

Elena's lip shook and tears slid from the corners of her eyes. "I thought. When he hit me. I knew. It's what he wanted. It's what he was trying to do."

The bedside monitor's beeping sped, and a nurse rounded the corner into Elena's room at a jog. She took one look at Elena's vitals and pointed at the door. "I think it's time for you to leave."

Damon slowly made his way down the hallway, his mind a mixture of conflicting emotions. He punched the elevator button without much of a thought, and he road down, ready to meet with Ric and Jo. But when the doors opened, he walked into chaos.

Two women were screaming, barely being restrained by nurses. They were fighting to get back into the staff-only corridors. Ric stood just behind him with Matt at his side. As Damon stepped into the waiting area, Ric motioned for Damon to follow him outside. Matt tagged along without being invited.

"What's going on?" Damon was still trying to process his conversation with Elena. He didn't need to know what was giving Ric his unusually-grim expression. "And what are you doing here?"

"I'm the one who found him." Matt spoke as if Damon was supposed to know what he was talking about.

"Him?"

"Jaime." Ric supplied the answer. "Apparently after beating the crap out of Elena, he went on a joyride."

"Hit at least four cars before driving his sports car off a cliff." Matt's cheeks flushed red with anger. "He's in bad shape."

"They called Jo in to help." Ric locked eyes with Damon. "Right now he's still alive. But she said he's not going to make it. Not without help."

Damon knew what Ric was implying. One drop of blood could keep Jaime alive. One drop of blood would give him a miracle recovery. Without another word to either Matt or Ric, Damon turned and walked to the parking lot. He had something he needed to do, but it wasn't something he could do at the hospital.

* * *

Damon stood in his foyer, staring down at the tiny box that had almost been forgotten in the confusion of the night. He'd thought he knew the life Elena wanted.

And he'd been so wrong.

Without giving it another thought, he cracked the lid to the box and took hold of the tiny glass flask.

* * *

He made it back to the hospital before Elena likely had a chance to realize he'd been gone. When he walked through the waiting room, calm had once again descended. Matt and Ric still sat side-by-side. The look in both their eyes told them everything he needed to know about Jaime's fate.

The dude's own temper saved Damon the trouble of killing him himself.

Bonnie was coming into the room from the direction of the elevators. "He's the only one she wants." Bonnie inclined her head in Damon's direction. Maybe Elena realized he was gone after all. "Where'd you go anyway?"

"I had something I had to do." He answered simply. Bonnie looked at him with suspicion. Everyone else might have forgotten about her delivery earlier in the night, but she hadn't. Without any extra explanation, he walked to the bank of elevators and waited.

He was all too aware of everything around him.

Footsteps on the tile.

Ticking of hidden clocks.

The murmur of conversation from his friends in the waiting room.

Finally, he heard the ding that signaled the elevator's arrival. He stepped through the doorway and took a long breath as the doors closed. His pocket felt too heavy for such a tiny bottle. Maybe it was all in his imagination.

When he walked back into Elena's room, he held up a finger to let her know it was his turn to talk. "Just…hear me out." He pulled a chair from across the room and dragged it to her bedside. He reached through the side-rails to take hold of her hand. "I know what I did was wrong. And I know that you're still scheduled to be angry with me later. But I need you to tell me one thing. Truly. Honestly. Do you regret being human again?" Elena's eyelids were heavy as she blinked, but her eyes were focused enough for Damon to know she was weighing the words to her answer. "Just the human part. Not everything else." He was quick to clarify.

"No. I loved being human. But Damon..." Her fingers squeezed his hand as if she were trying to apologize.

"Then that's all I needed to know. Because right now, I still have forever in front of me." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the little vial. Elena's face shifted from pained to stunned to shock and finally disbelief. Without giving her a chance to say a word, he broke the seal and held the glass to his lips. "But I don't want forever if I can't have it with you."


End file.
